Black ice is a reference to that almost invisible layer of ice that forms on roads and can send you spinning into a snowbank when you least expect it. Relationships are a bit like that in Black Ice (Musta Jaa) by Finnish director Petri Kotwica. This is a classy melodrama, though it relies totally on the strong performances of its lead characters to keep the project from fishtailing off into absurdity.
The story starts off conventionally enough with the discovery of an infidelity and the desire for revenge. The world of Saara (Outi Maenpaa), a gynecologist married to philandering architect Leo (Martti Suosalo), comes apart with the discovery of an open packet of condoms in his guitar case. Leo makes lame excuses, even as the object of his amorous attentions, an architectural student Tuuli (Ria Kataja), watches his discomfiture through binoculars. What follows is the convoluted progress of Saara’s revenge, which involves becoming close friends with her rival Tuuli and working to destroy the extra-marital affair from within.
The theme that emerges is the fine line between love and hate, from which Kotwica develops a series of variations which end up tying the main character up in emotional knots. Only death will release them — but whose? The two female leads put on a facade of cold rationality and independence as they face off in a game of emotional chess in which one of the players has no idea that her new best friend is actually her opponent. On the surface it is all cold calculation, but underneath there is a maelstrom of violent passions that respond in unexpected ways. The object of contention is Leo, a rather feckless man with a roaming eye, who inevitably comes out badly from a situation admittedly of his own making, but which, after the first moments of the film, he utterly loses control over.
The ebb and flow of the relationship between the two women is what drives this film, and it is the tension between expectation and reality that gives Black Ice a sense of danger even while the background is kept relentlessly within the bounds of affluent middle-class Finnish society. There is no need for dark corners and hidden knives here, for there is no darkness greater, and no hatred sharper than love gone astray, and Maenpaa and Kataja are more than equal to keeping up the suspense in their duet of love and hate.
Beyond the tortuous progress of the revenge plot, there are some bitingly humorous moments both in dialogue and visuals (such as Leo dressed in a penguin outfit for a fancy dress party during which the flames of hatred and misunderstanding are fanned by Saara), which are little sparkles that adorn the somber elegance of this well-constructed entertainment.
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