Hatching

(Pahanhautoja)

dir: Hanna Bergholm

2022

What a Freudian field day for the whole freaking family.

I can’t remember the last time I watched a Finnish film, but I can tell you two things: it was probably by Aki Kaurismaki, the only other Finnish director I can think of, and it was nothing like this. Certainly not as colourful.

This is flat out a horror flick, there’s no getting around it, and it’s a fairly brutal one. Don’t let gentle images of girls and eggs lull you into a false sense of security. It is pretty funny in parts, but I wouldn’t call this a dark comedy or anything like that. It’s way too bright, for one thing.

There is a Mother (Sophia Keikillä), who is an Instagram-influencer monster, a Father (Jani Volanen), a daughter Tinja (Siiri Solalinna) and a son Matias (Oiva Ollila). The son is a boring carbon copy of the father, and the mother does everything in her power to make the daughter into her clone. Everything they do, every way their house looks, has to be Instagram-worthy.

When Tinja competes in gymnastics, there’s none of that “just go out there and have fun” bullshit, or “good job” this or “you tried your best” that. There’s only “win or I will disfigure you” type tough love without the love part.

This can have an effect on a young woman’s development. When a bird flies into the house during one of these White Woman Instagram moments, and punctures Mother’s fantasy, Tinja tries to gently catch the bird, but Mother is all “I’m here for the neck snappings, nothing else”.

This unleashes forces the Mother, the Father, the whole neighbourhood simply cannot understand, but at least it will help Tinja achieve some measure of self-realisation.

Struggling as she is to live up to her Mother’s strict requirements, Tinja gets the opportunity to look after a new life in the form of an egg, from the mortally wounded bird. She protects the egg. She cradles the egg. She puts into it all her rage, shame, anger, jealousy, even as she’s doing her best to nurture it and see it grow.

What hatches is a sight, a sight to behold. I don’t think there’s any CGI involved, it looks like practical, physical effects work. It’s impressive, and kinda sickening, too.

Tinja calls this inhuman bird / child hybrid Alli, after a lullaby, and the ways of feeding it are pretty gross. Alli does need regurgitated food, like all baby birds. But she also likes to feed on blood and emotions. She especially seems to like killing neighbourhood pets and anyone else that pisses Tinja off.

The person who does Tinja the most damage, though? Alli doesn’t seem to go after Mother, directly. I guess that’s partly because despite all her rage Tinja still wants somehow to earn her mother’s love, which seems impossible. I mean, she’s horrible. When Tinja finds out her mother is fucking a local handyman, Mother leans into it and eventually tells her that this guy is the first person she’s ever felt any love for, in her whole life.

I didn’t say what type of love, but you get the idea, and Tinja gets the idea. The guy, Tero (Reino Nordin) isn’t so bad, but however cool he is with Tinja, he still is after all making the terrible choice to be linked to this girl’s appalling mother. After all, as a recent widower with a young baby to look after, he’s only presenting more potential victims for Alli to go after.

I mean, if Tinja feels jealous because Tero loves his baby more than her, isn’t that basically begging bird monster Alli to come along and eat her?

You can look at all this appalling activity as metaphorical, as in, considering what happens at the very end, with one “being” effectively now potentially taking the place of the other, who just happens to be dead / murdered, you could say it’s a metaphor for the difficulty of growing up, and of parents potentially or unintentionally creating their own monsters when they’re trying to mould their kids in their creator’s images.

Or you can just consider it a particularly cynical take on parenting in this current digital age or any other age, for that matter. What I call it is horrifying and hilarious in almost equal measure. Everyone in the flick plays it completely straight, so there’s no winking, no camp detected (though, admittedly, I have no idea how this would play to Finnish audiences, what their take on it would be, maybe this is a documentary as far as they’re concerned?)

Who knows, with those inscrutable Finns? At the very least I’m comfortable saying that at least for this Finnish director, the curation on or off line of one’s life is a terrible thing that could only lead to murder in the most extreme circumstances, but is more likely to result in profound dissatisfaction in trying to live solely by comparison. And also, like everywhere else, trying to keep a narcissistic parent happy is an exercise in futility, so try to avoid doing so if you can.

And if you do somehow grow a half-human, half-avian version of yourself, try not to let it eat too many people or pets too close to home. The cops will notice, the neighbours will gossip; it’s not an effective long term strategy for success.

The main performances are totally on point, especially the mother, but also poor Tinja, who has to do a lot of a lot, and it’s a pretty thankless task if you ask me. She does so well with the quieter aspects of the story, but also handles the kill crazy savage moments really well. The look of the flick is great, from the glaring, grating Insta-filter like family moments to the way Alli is initially done with puppets or animatronics and such. I will definitely be having horrible nightmares with birds in them tonight, but then there could be some awful matriarchal monstrous maternal stuff happening too, you just never know with the sub-conscious.

8 ways in which Hatching is horrible Finnish fun, definitely not for the whole family out of 10

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“I wished you’d at least let *me* be happy” – an extract from What to Expect When You’re Expecting Your Mum to Be a Jerk her Entire Life - Hatching