IRON SKY [2012]

HUG A NAZI

2012, Finland

Timo Vuorensola

8 // 10

Is whitening a black guy worse than teaching Lord Greystoke table manners? What sort of gravity does the Moon actually have? Is the really cool cinema of the 80s back? There's only one way to find out!

It's funny how things sometimes coincide with each other. Not so far ago I was mentioning how prolific in producing weird and whimsical cult classics the 80s were, and that I don't see much of that spirit in the film productions of today. Or maybe I didn't exactly say that but I was going to. Either way, scrap that. The Scandinavian streak continues and this time it hits the sweet spot with its 9x19mm Parabellum bullet. And while the Norwegian Trollhunter was much more modern and mature offering, the Finnish Iron Sky seems to be pure eightiesness distilled. It's a film that does make you consider in real life words like 'wacky'. Or 'extravaganza'. But if you're not into them big words, you can always just call it brilliant. I know it may rise an eyebrow or two (if you've never trained your single-eyebrow-rise routine) but it is. Because there's so much to it, than you can deduct from the trailers or the synopsis.

Yes, it's true, the film is about Nazis on the Moon. Yes, it does sound like one of those rather moronic ideas that Sci-fi fans would dream up on some thematic forum and then started adding to it everything else that Internet nowadays considers as 'awesome' (zombies, kittens, T-Rex riding Jesus Christ, Nicolas Cage etc.) yet the fact is that it may sound like it, but it isn't. What it is instead is a rather clever satire with just enough Nazi imagery to push it a little bit towards provocative, and a well measured level of silliness to place the tongue firmly in the cheek. And as for those Nazis, and the understandable sensitivity around them, well, here's the thing - by going all the way to the Moon and placing the plot in today's era, Vuorensola cleverly manages to detach his swastika branded villains from their WW2 infamous link. It maybe still too much for some, but I rather think that the good taste has not been compromised. Unlike some other examples you might have heard of.

All this you, kind of, could have almost guessed or at least hoped for even after just seeing the trailers. But guess what, there's far more to it. The Iron Sky is not about Nazis on the Moon. If there's anything in this film at all about Nazis worth mentioning, then it's a rather provocative question of how the Nazi ideology could have (maybe, maybe not) evolved over generations. There are very few other works I can recall that would toy with this idea (Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle and another film, Fatherland, featuring Rutger Hauer.) but even though the Iron Sky is far less serious then either, its point of view is still actually quite interesting. Anyway, digressions aside, what this film really is about, is the USA and the American Way of Life, which, as you may expect, are not treated here with utmost respect. If anything, Iron Sky is rather trying to grab them by the throat and then land a nasty kick right between where it hurts. It's not about America and Americans as such, but the imperialistic, world-police attitude that Vuorensola doesn't seem to be particularly fond of. He's fair though, when push comes to a shove, he's equally (if episodically) critical about other world powers.

To summarise, what initially seems to be a bad joke, turns out to be deeper and smarter than expected, but also hilarious and cheeky on the way. Maybe it didn't win the hearts of some of the more stuck-up film critics, but hey, who cares it's not Bergman? Scandinavian cinema does not all have to be about playing chess with death, does it now?