The Black Hole (Fantastic Fest 2024)

The Black Hole, recently played at Fantastic Fest, is a comedy/sci-fi anthology from Estonian director Moonika Siimets. My only experience with Estonian cinema is November (Rainer Sarnet, 2017), a historical, mythic, folkloric fantasy that tells of modern Estonia. However, its cues are primarily identifiable to those familiar with its context, leaving others likely to miss them. The Black Hole presents a chance to discover a new national cinema through a more relatable timeframe. While this might not be what Ebert referred to when calling movies an “empathy machine,” it is one interpretation I choose to follow. That said, “relatable” might be an odd choice of words here, as we’re talking about a highly absurd anthology film—one that doesn’t adhere to a strict anthology structure but instead opts for its own order of business.

The film contains four stories presented under three headings/titles: Life Worth Living, The Mystery of the Wooden Shoe, and Apple Pie. These are credited as being inspired by the writings of Armin Kõomägi and satirist, playwright, and screenwriter Andrus Kivirähk.

Life Worth Living is twofold. One half focuses on a pair of “post-menopausal women” struggling to find work in a harsh economic reality where even employment doesn’t guarantee a liveable income. Their fortunes change when they encounter an alien posing as a local. After an initial misunderstanding, the peaceful creature offers them €1,000 per night to lie down and let its far-off visitors study their anatomy—essentially hiring themselves out as lab rats. The other half of the story follows a female personal trainer who discovers a woman crying in one of the gym lockers. This leads to a whirlwind romance as the pair start living together—unaware they’re sharing their flat with a spider the size of a dog.

The Mystery of the Wooden Shoe revolves around an involuntarily chaste young man in a town full of scumbags. A twist of fate occurs when he loses his job and meets an Austrian man dressed in stereotypical attire. Later, the man shows up at the protagonist’s mother’s flat, where he sleeps on the sofa, attempting to sell a vacuum cleaner for a shocking price. This interaction sparks an obsession with the suspicious salesman. If I were to categorize this story, it feels like an erotic neo-noir as it evolves into a whirlwind romance for the inexperienced protagonist before segueing into a five-minute segment called Apple Pie.

The story of the two women moonlighting as lab rats showcases The Black Hole at its most scintillatingly inventive. World cinema often serves as a canvas to understand different countries, and this story—more than any other—depicts an Estonia where workers struggle, and employers give preferential treatment to people from Finland and Ukraine. However, even before the fantastical elements arrive, it is all presented with a surrealist absurdity reminiscent of Roy Andersson and Radu Jude. Reality feels familiar yet slightly askew, and then aliens arrive, upping the ante for the weird.

The aliens are practical creations that exude a crusty futurism reminiscent of late-era Red Dwarf, complete with gross details like flaccid, phallic-looking appendages emanating from some mouth-like cavity. This is a real creative triumph for the production designer, costume, and makeup teams, especially as the aliens aren’t even remotely humanoid like so many other cinematic extraterrestrials tend to be. Later, the violence enacted upon the two women neither causes them pain nor particularly bothers them. It consistently draws laughs, especially as the absurdity and violence escalates.

Yet, it’s not just funny; it’s thematically rich, illustrating how there’s always someone better off—whether Finnish, Ukrainian, or Andromedan—and how nothing is more expensive than pride combined with extreme desperation.

The second half of Life Worth Living has a setup similar to Rose Glass’s Loves Lies Bleeding, particularly in the character archetypes and their horniness. However, in other key ways, it’s entirely different. This is a fairly straightforward, humble story of two women falling in love, albeit with the specter of lying creeping into their relationship. The “muscle mommy” (as advertised in the Fantastic Fest promo—she aspires to this) tries to keep secret the spiders and mysterious sounds lingering throughout her flat, while her new lover lies about who keeps texting her. This is just a humble, perfectly likeable love story, albeit with one of the most adorable reveals of 2024. That reveal and the incidental characters cry out for more—many sitcoms would be lucky to have this supporting cast, especially the oddball detective. What even is his story?

I would have loved more stories in the same vein and worldview as the first two. Unfortunately, The Mystery of the Wooden Shoes is a combo breaker. While it builds into a sordid (and again, very horny) affair, the story doesn’t flow with as much elegance. The lead character is less likeable, and his story is less interesting. One red herring around a manhole cover with Illuminati-style adornments feels frustratingly undercooked, despite being the inspiration behind the title. Above all, the fantastical element in the first two stories is much too subtle here. However, it does set up the Apple Pie segment. While the path to that segment is a bleak lesson in consequences, it reminds me of the most important window in any given movie—the first and final minutes. How you are introduced to a world is just as vital as how you leave it. Siimets leaves her audience with an air of positivity and hope. Sure, the story that leads to this climactic sequence is sluggish, but this final five minutes will leave you wanting more from this satisfyingly weird Estonian town. And just as importantly, it will leave you with a smile.

If you leave the audience with a smile and wanting more, you’ve done a great job. After all, it’s better to want more than to grow tired of a movie world.

Few are making movies like The Black Hole. Sure, other people make movies like this, but they do it with nihilism at their core, which isn’t what Siimets is doing. This is an expansive, endlessly imaginative piece with cinematography that captures both the grim reality and the endless potential of the fantastical. It features practical effects, puppetry, and the most gorgeous teleportation effect I’ve seen, all while being peppered with enough subtext for a handful of movies. Its comedy is hit and miss, but we’re dealing with cultural differences, and what makes different cultures laugh can often be vastly different. When it does land, it’s riotously funny. While not all stories are equally strong, show me an anthology film where that isn’t the case. The important thing here is that The Black Hole has more than enough to put both the film and its director firmly on your radar.

Rob’s Archive – The Black Hole (2024)