Worth: $17.00
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Cast:
Saara Lamberg, Andy Hazel, Brendan Bacon
Intro:
The kind of experimental trip rarely taken in this country, this true original manages to draw you in while keeping you at arm’s length at the same time, and that’s no mean feat.
Family abuse, nude modelling, chainsaw art, twins, tattoos, murder, and more…when it comes to ticking outré buttons, Innuendo is edgy independent cinema personified. And indie this Australian-Finnish mash-up is, being crafted well outside the auspices of traditional local funding via crowdfunding and other modes of finance. The work of an impressive multitasker in the form of Finnish-born, Australian-based writer/director/producer star Saara Lamberg, Innuendo wears its influences (David Lynch, Yorgos Lanthimos, and, most clearly, Roman Polanski) proudly and with reckless abandon, but always functions as an engagingly original film in its own right.
Defying easy genre categorisation, Innuendo tracks the dour, disconnected Tuuli (Lamberg) from Finland to Australia, where she hurls herself into the world of nude art class modelling. Haunted by memories of a painful childhood defined by her complex relationship with her angelic twin sister and domineering parents, Tuuli appears to drift aimlessly before lolling into the staid orbit of sensitive uni student, Thomas (Andy Hazel). Unimpressed, Tuuli quickly moves onto the rough, charismatic chainsaw sculptor, Ben (Brendan Bacon), who leads a far more marginalised life. Mixing with his circle of friends, the singular Tuuli begins to act out in strange and confronting ways, eventually becoming a threatening and malignant anti-life force.
Though the low budget occasionally hurts, Innuendo is a stylish exercise into dark psychological territory, with a finely tuned pay-off electrifying the final act. The performances are strong, with Brendan Bacon a particular stand-out. Boasting the kind of idiosyncratic physicality and presence that would mark him for top-tier character actor gigs if he was American, he provides the film with much needed earthiness in the face of its often elliptical stylisation. Dreamy, strange, and daring in its willingness to challenge and distance the audience with its remote, icy anti-heroine, Innuendo is a brave effort from the keenly talented Saara Lamberg.
The kind of experimental trip rarely taken in this country, this true original manages to draw you in while keeping you at arm’s length at the same time, and that’s no mean feat.
I recently interviewed Saara Lamberg and then watched Innuendo. It is a captivating movie about the childhood experiences of two twin sisters and how these experiences shaped their lives. It is a movie about child abuse, sibling rivalry, complicated parent-child relations, religious indoctrination, love, jealousy and murder.
Saara Lamberg wrote, directed and produced Innuendo. She also plays the protagonist and gives a brilliant performance, as do her co-stars –Brendan Bacon and Andy Hazel.
An enigmatic woman, Tuuli, arrives in Australia in search of her identity, after escaping her childhood trauma and rejecting her parents and their values. She leaves behind her native Finland and her twin sister, who is her alter ego. Tuuli is a quintessential duplicitous femme fatale, who becomes entangled in love, jealousy and murder.
The movie is an exploration of the duality of good and evil. It shows the ambiguity of good and evil, when, what is considered good becomes evil, and what is considered evil becomes good. It is a psychological masterpiece.
Innuendo has been created in the tradition of Scandinavian cinema, with apparent strong influences of its greatest master, Ingmar Bergman, especially his movie Persona. Like Bergman’s movies, Lamberg’s Innuendo is difficult to understand intellectually. Rather it is a sensuous experience.
Another visible influence of Scandinavian cinema on Innuendo is that of Lamberg’s compatriot, Petri Kotwica and his acclaimed movie Black Ice. Similarities in terms of double identity, love, jealousy, and the names of two heroines, Tuuli and Saara, are curious.
Tuuli is a fitting name for the heroine of Innuendo. It means ‘wind’ and, according to Finnish mythology, is the name of the goddess of animals, daughter of the god of the forest. Ben, Tuuli’s Australian boyfriend, compares her to an eagle, which signifies liberation from bondage, freedom and majestic power. Innuendo’s symbolism is fascinating.
It is an intriguing movie that may be interpreted in a variety of ways and therefore keeps you thinking about it for days. It makes you reminisce about your own childhood. It epitomises the fact that we are all victims of our upbringing, indoctrination and real or symbolic violence that we experience in childhood. Most of us rebel against these childhood experiences as we embark on a search for our own identity to find out who we really are, just as Tuuli did.
Innuendo is a must-see movie.