Wonderman (1979)

Original title

Ihmemies

Directed by

Antti Peippo

Genre

comedy horror, science fiction film

Country

Finland

Runtime

1h 43m

Rated

K-12

Rating

7.3 of 10 from 3 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A data expert gets his brain capacity boosted through a special program and proposes harsh measures to save his company from bankruptcy. When his drastic plans force the board to resign, he has to go into hiding.

quirkysatiricalbleakslow-burnstrangecerebrallow-keyabsurd

What happens

Wonderman (Finnish: Ihmemies) is a 1979 Finnish science fiction horror comedy film directed by Antti Peippo and starring Antti Litja, Martti Pennanen and Saara Pakkasvirta. It tells story about the data-expert that proposes, after his brain capacity has been developed in the special rationalization program, the serious measures that will save the company from an economic collapse, but when his drastic savings programs forces the board to resign, he must go underground. The film is the only directorial work of Peippo, who was better known as a cinematographer, and Jouko Turkka was originally planned to be the director of the film. Wonderman was also the first film production of the Filminor company after the death of its leader Risto Jarva in 1977. The Finnish Film Foundation supported the production of Wonderman with FIM 830,000. Yleisradio bought three TV broadcast rights in advance for FIM 220,000, but only used two of them. The official premiere of the film was on 2 November 1979, only in Finland's largest cities; in Kuopio, Pori, Vaasa and Jyväskylä, Wonderman was not seen until around 1980. Viewers, the film gathered 42% of the 1979 average. According to the advertising slogan on the poster, Wonderman was a "comedy for our time" (Komedia meidän ajastamme), but after the film's premiere, critics didn't really know how to feel about it, as its slapstick-style visual comedy was considered too overlaid on the story. Mikael Fränti from Helsingin Sanomat mentioned the following about the film, among other things: "What kind of movie is Wonderman? Maybe we could talk about a contemplative film that also relies on humor and functional pranks. --- But apparently the problem is that Wonderman is too 'literary' at the level of the script. And during the making process, this written taste has not been completely achieved to eliminate." A later reviewer, Pekka Suorsa from DVD-opas, sees the Wonderman as telling more about our own time squeezed by the "quarter economy" than about the problems of the late 1970s. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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