Hamlet Goes Business

“For every man hath business and desire . . . .” (Hamlet, Act I, Scene V). Hamlet as a cynical film noir set in the business world makes sense for our own out-of-joint time. Kaurismäki's rendition is a resolutely deadpan spoof; visually, a cross between George Kuchar and David Lynch-shot in black-and-white from every conceivable angle, and some we hadn't conceived of. Hamlet (comic Pirkka-Pekka Petelius), scion of a business concern, is a pouty, vaguely porcine young man, distracted by his malfunctioning appetites and dismayed by the angst of life on this barren reef. He seems oblivious to the power he inherits upon the murder of his tycoon father, but a robotic Ophelia (the delightfully depressed Kati Outinen) is but one of the victims of the treacherous greed that permeates the film. (“Better Hamlet's fortune should go to you than to some secretary,” Polonius counsels her.) But . . . our fingers on our lips, for we have already told too much.

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