Fantasia Fest 2021: ‘Kratt,’ a demented moralist fable

A fairytale structure is the devil’s playground. And boy, does writer/director Rasmus Merivoo take you for one wildly screwy ride. Playing this year’s Fantasia Fest, Kratt repurposes the ancient Estonian myth of the kratt — a creature built out of hay and household items, which comes alive once a pact is made with the devil and will do your bidding, no matter how nefarious — to tell a modern fable about social media addiction, conservation, and mob mentality.

City kids by nature, siblings Mia (Nora Merivoo) and Kevin (Harri Merivoo) must spend their summer vacation with their grandmother Helju (Mari Lill), a genial, warm-spirited homemaker while their parents detox at some hippie retreat. And that means: no cell phones. That’s practically a death sentence, especially for Mia, a burgeoning YouTuber who constantly frets over her following base. To keep their minds off such nonsense, Helju gives the two youngsters chores to do around her farm, from picking berries and raking apples to chopping wood, feeding the chickens, and gathering water for the flowers. But nothing seems to quench the serotonin rush they receive through likes and RTs and Facebook comments.

Late one night, when tucking her grandchildren snuggly into bed, Helju shares a tale about kratt from her childhood and how she failed to uncover a long-lost tome which details the steps one takes to build a kratt. A wistfulness appears faintly around her lips, a flash of desire in her eyes, but she quickly shrugs it off and bids them goodnight. And so, Kevin and Mia, who’s at once stricken with delight over such a fantastical prospect, begrudgingly go back to their not-so-quiet torment.

Things seem to change, however, when Mia and Kevin meet two other children who live in the Estonian village. Juuli (Elise Tekko) and her brother August (Roland Treima) are much like them: struggling to preoccupy themselves as their father, too, as swiped their electronic devices. They don’t even have Wifi, how tragic! The four bond over their collective desperation but soon find a silver lining as the library apparently has two computers for public use. So, naturally, they traipse off with the hope of getting their technological fix, if only for a moment.

When they arrive, the library has just received a massive load of books, boxes spilling over with tattered, discolored bindings and novellas with missing pages strewn everywhere. On a whim, Mia glances into nearby box and grabs the first book her hand grazes, and whaddya know, it so happens to be the missing volume, a pentacle glistening in gold ink on its pitch black cover.

As it turns out, the shipment of boxes comes from the Governor’s office, which is undergoing their own kind of plight. Here, the film is nothing if not ambitious. Two very different storylines, seemingly having absolutely nothing to do with one another, apart from overlapping characters — for example, Juuli and August’s father is Lembit (Paul Purga), the leader of a local activist group whose sole mission is keeping the “ancestral grove,” as he calls it, thriving and in-tact. A local tree harvesting company has their eyes set on reaping the benefits of what such a plot of land, and its wealth of lumber, would guarantee. The governor (Ivo Uukkivi) unintentionally signs a permit allowing for the entire stretch of countryside to be cleared, despite vowing to the activist group that nothing will come of it.

Kratt runs nearly two hours, and perhaps, 25 minutes of fat should have been trimmed. A bulk of time is spent away from Mia and Kevin, who do eventually build their own kratt out of a basin, a water pitcher, and various farm tools, and sure do wish they had never attempted such a feat in the first place, and you nearly forget how wonderfully charming they are onscreen. While there are thematic traces which connect the two stories, albeit tenuous, there’s plenty of style and visual feasting to be had. Merivoo is an absolute craftsman with his storybook, drawing you into his lush, provocative world, and you find yourself surrendering totally to its absurd playfulness. Once the kratt appears, you can’t help but chuckle every time it squeaks in its scruffy baritone, “Give me work!”

It’s a race against time, then, when Mia and Kevin are worn down with no other tasks to hand the kratt and must figure out a way to stop it before it kills anyone else. In his final hour the Governor must contend with the activist mob, as well, an intriguing enough parallel to the work-hungry creature — a suggestion that maybe we’re all some sort of kratt when it comes down to it. “Power is slavery!” he screeches in an epic speech about Facebook, noting how there will always be somebody mad about something online. Despite this very disjointed storyline, Kratt is a lighthearted romp through the wilderness, each of its humorous barbs and thorny commentaries on modern culture a fascinating glimpse into the deeper psyche of what makes human beings so perversely obsessive. It’s grim in all the right spots, and joyous in others. It’s a downright delicious surprise.

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