Aimless Kanopy-surfing turned up a real gem, this time. A Time of Roses (1969) is a peculiar breed of Scandinavian unicorn: a futuristic Finnish science fiction film that paints a startling, semi-accurate picture of early twenty-first century media manipulation, even as it revels in the groovy, dated 1960s sensibilities that influenced its futurism.
This one takes place four decades or so from when it was made, in a dystopia characterized by ubiquitous surveillance and a class stratification designed to keep the populace sedate and distracted. (Sound familiar?) Our protagonist is Raimo (Arto Tuominen), a researcher at a historical institute whose popular documentaries prop up the complacent status quo. Raimo, anyway, seems to think he’s living in the best of all possible worlds—but he’s also a member of the privileged elite, isolated from simmering resentments underlying the social fabric. Raimo’s latest project, which he collaborates on with his assistant/girlfriend Anu (Tarja Markus), is a program documenting the unremarkable life of model Saara Turunen (Ritva Vepsä), who died in a tragic accident in the mid-seventies. Growing increasingly obsessed with Saara’s history, Raimo begins to transfer that obsession onto a young woman named Kisse (also Vepsä), who bears a striking resemblance to Saara. What Raimo doesn’t know is that Kisse is affiliated with elements of the disgruntled working class, looking to sabotage Raimo as they prepare for a general strike.
A Time of Roses is a delicious construct of kitschy, 1960s visual style, and while the grainy black-and-white film screams out for garish Technicolor, that same stark monochrome also contributes to the sterile, oppressive ambience. In terms of fashion and interior design, the film’s futurism misses the mark, of course, although the inflatable furniture and undersized mod fashions are fun. But the film’s twenty-first century hits close to home, positing widespread video surveillance, home computing, a primitive version of the internet, reality-distorting media bubbles, and systemic misinformation campaigns. Director/co-writer Risto Jarva takes a lot of big predictive swings in the story, but some of those swings—particularly in terms of politics and dehumanizing telecommunications infrastructure—really connect. Be forewarned: it’s slow, artsy, and not especially energizing, but one can see in its makeup an influential sensibility that would go on to fuel 1970s SF films like THX 1138 and Logan’s Run. More impressive, though, is its prescient view of how western life in the new millennium might look. The visual details may be off base, but the officious, dystopian atmosphere is chillingly on point.
