Who is raising the kids in Estonia?
Mia and Kevin are dropped off at their grandma’s house while their parents head off to a wellness retreat. Not only is that the worst, but grandma does not even have the internet and dad mistakenly took their phones with him when they were dropped off. Never fear, there’s lots to do around grandma’s house like picking berries, raking up apples, and cleaning out the chicken coop.
Well this just sucks, so Mia and Kevin come up with a plan when they find an old occult text at the library. If they make a kratt, a mythical creature you make up with bits and bobs around your home, and possess it with a spirit from Satan - sounds totally safe so far - it will only want to work non stop. This is a wonderful idea that will spare Mia and Kevin from doing all the chores around the house. Unfortunately, the spirit takes over grandma and now the kids must figure out how to save her, and probably everyone else, once she runs out of work.
At the same time that the grandkids are dealing with grandma there are other stories happening here. The local governor is coping with the loss of his position, the local activist group is trying to save a sacred forest on someone else’s property and don’t get us started about the Americans catching wind of the book’s existence somewhere in the back end of the film. Under it all director Rasmus Merivoo has a bone to pick with the internet and social media, constantly taking shots at online culture.
It all sounds like a complete mess, and in a way, it is. Kratt is a glorious mess of a film, seemingly put together by throwing all these pieces in the air and cutting it in the order that it lands in. It skips from what we do about grandma, to cadavers in a basement bar, to helicopter dick jokes, and more. So much more. It will also jump back in time for no sensible reason whatsoever.
Yet, as chaotic as it sounds there is no escaping Kratt’s clutches. Once it has its hooks in you there is either a growing determination and frustration that comes with waiting to see what’s next. In there amongst the mess is something fun and funny, weird, wacky and wonderful. There are also some genuine laugh out loud moments in the mix as well.
The acting varies from charming and hilarious to naive and stilted. Mari Lill is lovely as the warm and affable grandma. Young actress Nora Merivoo seems more at ease speaking in English than she does her director father’s native Estonian. All the young actors give performances on par with grade school production value, by accident or on purpose, it’s hard to tell here. Perhaps it is part of Merivoo’s talking points on online culture, creating drone children who are only alive when they’re online. They do perk up when their parents return from their retreat with the kid's phones.
Kratt is a family fantasy film that will work for about half its audience while infuriating the rest. There is a determination by Merivoo to cram as much as he can within its run time while taking time to fade to black as much as possible, like closing your eyes after waking up in a start from a cavalcade of images in your mind. There is an undeniable charm in its naivety, that more is more, that lots of anything is the best thing. It’s after school children’s programming on acid. Some of it is not for kids though, the bits of violence and gore to be sure, maybe the occult business depending which side of the fence you’re on with that. Then there’s other parts that are totally for kids, like what do you do when you have to be somewhere fast and you’re farting enough wind to make your own tropical storm. What to do, what to do.
For those who dare for something bereft of structure Kratt charts its own absurd course, though we think someone lost the map.
Kratt is now On Demand during Fantasia.