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Cult Cinema: The Temptation of St. Tony (2009) - Reviewed
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| Courtesy of Olive Films |
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| Courtesy of Olive Films |
Opening on a quotation from Dante’s Divine Comedy,
we find middle-aged well-to-do manager Tõnu (Taavi Eelmaa) leading the
procession of his father’s funeral on a beach when a car flips over nearby and
crashes on the shoreline. The funeral
continues unabated by the vehicular accident as the injured and bloodied
passenger crawls out of the wreckage before stumbling upon Tõnu. He offers to drive the man to the hospital
who is just tickled pink to be sitting inside such a luxurious vehicle. Thus begins The Temptation of St. Tony
which follows Tõnu through a series of increasingly surreal and nightmarish
misadventures as the ground of the film begins to go out from under its morally
conflicted “hero”.
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| Courtesy of Olive Films |
Divided by chapters in a Dante-esque structure as the
film’s hero repeatedly encounters a strange but beautiful woman (Ravshana
Kurkova) interspersed with bizarre anecdotes.
Leading towards a Twin Peaks influenced nightclub known as the Golden
Age including but not limited to human trafficking, naked dancing and
cannibalism, The Temptation of St. Tony is an episodic journey into the
netherworld as Tõnu wrestles with ever developing moral quandaries. Not unlike Polish maestro Andrzej Żuławski’s The Devil, the film sets off a series of anarchic visionary cinematic
explosions before the cameras with a morally complex antihero at the epicenter
trying to make sense of the nihilistic and amoral world he lives in.
Co-starring the great Denis Levant (Leos Carax’s
partner-in-crime), The Temptation of St. Tony is stunningly photographed
by Mart Taniel and boasts an unforgettable original electronic score by Ülo
Krigul which fluctuates freely between ambience, dance techno and eventually a
Ligeti-esque series of choral requiems on the soundtrack. Wholly sonically and visually arresting from
top to bottom, the film also boasts brilliant production design which garnered Markku Pätilä and Jaagup Roomet a European Film Awards nomination, moving
from the craggy open terrain of forests and swamps decorated with human limbs
into a labyrinthine subterrain manmade structure that feels otherworldly.
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| Courtesy of Olive Films |
Performances across the board are solid with Taavi Eelmaa
perfectly expressing the protagonist’s sense of growing terror and confusion
and Ravshana Kurkova exuding purity and innocence in a world keen on corruption
of everything. Levant’s brilliant cameo
as Count Dionysos Korzybski is sure to leave even the staunchest of Carax fans
scratching their heads and the grand guignol finale will no doubt trigger
unpleasant memories of Peter Greenaway’s still searing masterwork The Cook,
the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover.
Despite the film’s frightening and bleak tone, The
Temptation of St. Tony is at times impishly playful with how it seems to
throw caution to the wind and dive headfirst into extreme absurdism. Closest to Aleksei German’s still stomach-churning
cinematic monument Khrustalyov, My Car! in terms of presenting an
episodic free for all into madness and mayhem, Õunpuu’s second feature cements
the Estonian writer-director as a new young prodigy to watch for with baited-breath.
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| Courtesy of Olive Films |
In what is surely one of the most original voices in new
world cinema, The Temptation of St. Tony doesn’t play nice or fair and
is often difficult if not an irascible picture to watch but at the heart of it
all is Õunpuu’s uniquely farcical sense of…fun?
For as awful as things get here, there’s something about The
Temptation of St. Tony that’ll manage to leave a smirk on your face.
--Andrew Kotwicki
