Giant’s Kettle begins with a black screen, as howling winds are heard in the background. We rest with this image - we stay with this image. Slowly, a hand and a face eerily come out of the darkness, looking straight at us, the viewer. It’s a man. His forehead is bandaged. His expression is blank. He stares at us for an uncomfortably long period of time. We feel that he is trapped. We feel that he holds resentment, but also tiredness. He then finally breaks eye contact with us as he closes his eyes and smudges his face against the glass, breathing heavily.

What follows next is an hour spent in liminal space - somewhere in the past, but also seemingly somewhere in the future. Each scene is like a distant, foggy memory - backdrops of brutalist buildings next to factory pipes pouring out smoke; apartment buildings unrecognizable from the next; cloudy, grey skies hanging over cloudy, grey days. In fact, the whole film is shot in a sort of grayscale, where you can’t tell where one object ends and another begins. Everything comes together to create a surreal dreamscape… or perhaps, a nightmare, as something important seems to be missing. Is it love? Is it connection? Is it mystery? Whatever it is, it seeps into every corner of the world we are presented - as the more we watch, the more things start to break apart at the edges.

This is a film with no dialogue - yet surprisingly, the sound says everything. Scenes feature big hallways with echoes of footsteps that bounce off the walls - gusts of wind pouring past our main characters - the subtle rumble of a car engine as a family goes on a road trip. We are given much time to focus on the sound through the many stationary shots presented in the film - great stills that stay in the memory for years to come. Every detail in each of the 31 scenes is carefully considered: the blocking, the staging, the smallest change in facial expression. The result feels like gliding through an art gallery.

Yet such a beautiful film had many obstacles to go through before being presented to us today. In an interview with the New Jersey Film Festival, Finnish co-directors Markku Hakala and Mari Käki talked about some of the hardships behind making Giant’s Kettle. “We first had a script ten years before - to start the film we needed 4 years… the complications were in having every shot in a different location, having the film set in the 60’s and 70’s, having a child actor… it was too much for us. Many times we decided not to make this film.” However, they pushed through and managed to produce the film anyway, especially after meeting their future lead actor in a coffee shop and deciding, “He is the one.” To think - that such a small chance of fate could lead to the eventual creation of such a film!

Giant’s Kettle truly is a fine product of independent filmmaking. With non-professional, yet authentic actors, a budget fueled by life-time savings, and filming without a crew, you can feel the hard work and passion behind the film in every second of its runtime. There is an immense tension behind every moment. There is vulnerability, yet there is also a feeling of safety. There is resonance behind what we are shown. There is humor. There is joy. There is grief. For a debut feature from two directors with no backgrounds in either art or film, Giant’s Kettle is one of the most striking films we have seen coming out of experimental media in a long time.

Giant’s Kettle screens at the Spring 2025 New Jersey Film Festival on Saturday, February 8th.  The film will be Online for 24 Hours on this show date and In-Person at 5 PM in Voorhees Hall #105/Rutgers University, 71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ.

Tickets are available for purchase here.

The 43rd Bi-Annual New Jersey Film Festival will be taking place on select Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays between January 24-February 21, 2025. The Festival will be a hybrid one as it will be presented online as well as doing in-person screenings at Rutgers University. All the films will be available virtually via Video on Demand for 24 hours on their show date. VoD start times are at 12 Midnight Eastern USA. Each General Admission Ticket or Festival Pass purchased is good for both the virtual and the in-person screenings. Plus, acclaimed singer-songwriter Renee Maskin will be doing an audio-visual concert on Friday, February 21 at 7PM! The in-person screenings and the Renee Maskin concert will be held in Voorhees Hall #105/Rutgers University, 71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ beginning at 5PM or 7PM on their show date. General Admission Ticket=$15 Per Program; Festival All Access Pass=$100; In-Person Only Student Ticket=$10 Per Program. 

For more info go here: https://newjerseyfilmfestivalspring2025.eventive.org/welcome