Fränk
Fränk is a dark film where children can overdose, young boys can kill each other, and where disabled men relentlessly cry from the pure evil inflicted upon them.
Within the first 20 or so minutes, Fränk surveys an entire genre playlist worth of musical varieties. The Estonian film doesn’t really take mega-tonal shifts as it sonically jukes from metal to radio pop to harmonica-blues. It’s even stranger when the harmonica comes from a 14-year-old Estonian boy, Paul (Derek Leheste), who, despite the title, is the film’s main character. The harmonica is an old man’s instrument, is it not? But the sonically undefined world is a proper introduction to Paul’s new life in rural Estonia with his uncle. He is just as lost as the music in these early scenes.
Paul brings a new face to an otherwise tight-knit small town. A local group of young boys spend their free time drinking alcohol, sniffing glue, and bullying an innocent disabled man. They call him “Fränk,” short for Frankenstein, but his brother calls him Sasha (Oskar Seeman). Paul makes sorry-excuses of friends by joining them in their heckling and rock throwing. Sasha is a Russian diminutive for Alexander and his brother speaks to him in Russian. His language makes him even more of an other in a modern, anti-Russophone Estonia. It’s an incredible small touch that probably pays off even more dividends in its intended Estonian audience. Eventually, after feeling guilt for a terrible “joke,” Paul begins to spend time with Fränk and learns he is human too.
Continue reading at DMovies.