{mosimage}One of the Finnish titles of the year, a heart breaking drama that take us to the island of the dark butterflies.
Opposite to the title, in the island where the youngsters try to overtake their problems you won’t see many butterflies flying around. But you will surely appreciate the darkness of tormented souls wandering around, looking for a reason to live on.
As you will notice while watching it, this movie is certainly not the best one to cheer you up in a bad day. Personally I felt quite depressed after watching it; something bad happens every 10 minutes, and there are not many happy moments to compensate the drama surrounding the characters. That does not mean anyway that the movie is bad. I enjoyed pretty much the excellent acting of Tommi Korpela as Harjula, the director of the institution in the island, and the young Niilo Syväoja as Juhani, both of them perfectly complemented by Eero Milonoff, who after Ganes, is becoming a safe value to count with in whatever Finnish movie he appears. The list of secondary roles also counts with the presence of well known Finnish names such as Kati Outinen or Matleena Kuusniemi.
A tough movie but endorsed with a positive message of hope in the end. Certainly Finnish cinema and its melancholic atmosphere is not the most appropriated one if you like light-hearted movies, but hey, that is why this is Finland, isn’t it?
Rating 4/5.