Director Rasmus Merivoo must be one heckuva fun guy to have a beer with. Even in Estonian with subtitles, his impossible to define film makes you chuckle throughout. I might ordinarily have run like the wind from a film described the way Kratt is, but I’m sure glad I didn’t.
Merivoo is spinning plates throughout; running over to this story thread, then back to that one, but don’t forget the one over there! Somehow it all works.
Here’s the sort of bare bones description: two kids who are attached to their smartphone as if they’d been surgically implanted, learn that they’re spending the summer with Grandma. There will be no phones, no internet, and surely no fun.
But Grandma (Mari Lilll is a gas) has ways of keeping the kids busy – mainly doing farm type chores. Finally Grandma tells the kids about the fabled Kratt – a creature that one makes out of spare parts and bits and bobs that will then do all the work you ask of it. In fact, it seems the only thing the Kratt knows how to say is “give me work.” It literally wants to be given countless jobs to do.
This proves not to be as fun as it sounds. Now, at the same time, and I am not going to try to explain how it fits together, there’s a town Mayor who is up to his eyeballs in unhappy residents, a group of greens (called “Hippies” at one point in the subtitles) who are protesting the cutting down of trees in a nearby forest, a Priest, and a kitchen sink…okay, not literally, but…almost.
I also chuckled at the more than ample zoom ins and zoom outs – reminded me of the movies we watched as kids in the 70s.
It’s not a perfect film – it takes too long to get to the main story, and overstays by just a smidge, but there’s no throwing cold water on its spirit.
Now available to stream on Video-on-Demand platforms
