The Days That Confused (2016)

Strong and Moving!

Don't Believe the Hype

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

'The Days That Confused' is feature debut for director/writer Triin Ruumet. The film is visually breathtaking with sometimes magnificently haunting score and actors are mostly doing top notch job (actually I didn't expect nothing less considering the cast), and with that my praise basically ends. Estonian cinema (and television) is in the craze of the nostalgia at the moment, and 'The Days That Confused' could have been an excellent addition in that department. It could have been great film (or at least good), but it didn't know what to do with all that juicy material. The pacing is off, the story and script is all over the place - it wanted to be youth comedy/drama and crime drama and something philosophical at the same time, but fell apart. Although it occasionally captured the essence of rural and small town mentality and the characters were spot on (these types still can be seen today in smaller towns) the core was missing. Maybe that was the director's intention to confuse the audience thus the title 'The Days That Confused'. But I think that wasn't the case. The film itself was confused (I think that might go for inexperienced writer/director) and it was confusing. The film had some high points that were followed by the 'why' moments and with too many 'what that supposed to be' moments.'The Days That Confused' is visually stunning, but devoid of substance. The first couple of minutes could be one of the best opening sequence in Estonian movies ever.

In the late 1990ies, I was only a bit older than the leading characters of the film, but as I lived in a big city, have never liked thumping music and noisy bars, I do not have personal touch of such a lifestyle. But through my friends and relatives, I have distant knowledge. Thus, the attitudes, ways of communication and events depicted seem realistic - praise for the Director/Screenwriter who was a small child back then - but still I can hardly regard it conceptional.In a sense, it is a typical Estonian film: great/good actors, uneven plot, small budget not enabling "smooth switching"... Particularly the male ones stick out, female performances are weaker and have less scene time, and none of them could be mentioned as undoubtedly better/memorable than the others. On the other hand, I wonder how their rendering is perceived by foreigners, by those who have never seen them before or only casually. As the younger Toompere and Ulfsak are undoubtedly good character actors.The biggest shortcoming of the plot is the inclusion of "deep" scenes and dialogues chopping and changing the ones with brutes. The choice of music was appropriate, but such an inclusion of singing scenes? They did not conform to the rest of "signature" of the film. The first half or so and the very beginning are the strongest parts.PS The real black humour (this film is advertised as tragicomedy) lies in the fact that, since that period, only the exterior has evolved or changed. The interior, the essence of being "stuck" in a distant rural area provides similar outputs as visible in the film in question. That is life, and that is as it is.