HEARTBEAST

Director: Aino Suni

Country: France, Finland, Germany

Year: 2022

Duration: 102 min

Languages: French, Finnish, German, English / subtitled in Finnish and Swedish

Original name: Sydänpeto

Category: , ,

The ancient theme of obsessive possessiveness, sometimes even referred to as passionate love gets a 2020s update in Heartbeast. Aspiring young rapper Elina (Elsi Sloan) moves with her mother from Finland to sunny Southern France, where she finds a new point of interest aside from music: her new stepsister Sofia (Carmen Kassovitz) who is a ballet dancer. An intense relationship builds up between the two girls infused in sexuality, competitiveness, and codependency, as Elina tries to have Sofia all to herself.

Director and screenwriter Aino Suni’s leap into feature filmmaking flaunts the confidence of a filmmaker mastering her field. The cinematography bathing in light, shadows and neon lights, the beating music of AIR’s JB Dunckel and the unpredictable presence of Elsi Sloan in her debut role form a whole with exceptional intensity. As a Finnish-French-German co-production, Heartbeast is also a great example of the internationalising of our film culture.

Suvi Heino