2012: Raimo Lappalainen is wary of his society, which believes in science as the answer to everything, even the imponderables of history. He begins to investigate the life of a certain Saara who died in the mid-1970s in a car accident and who'd made a living from appearing in films and on stage, sometimes dressed and often not. He finds a girl called Kisse to play Saara - this, as everybody knows who's ever read Georges Rodenbach's Bruges-la-Morte (1892) and/or seen Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958), will end in despair. Yes, this is now the year of A Time of Roses, and it's terrifying to see how precisely Risto Jarva, Jaakko Pakkasvirta and Peter von Bagh predicted all our failings and stupidities - not of our everyday lives, but of the body politic, not to mention the soul. A gem of science fiction cinema which takes its philosophical-sociopolitical dimension more seriously than most exercises in this particular genre.
- Director
- Risto Jarva
- Country of production
- Finland
- Year
- 1969
- Festival Edition
- IFFR 2012
- Length
- 108'
- Medium
- 35mm
- Original title
- Ruusujen aika
- Language
- Finnish
- Producer
- Risto Jarva
- Production Company
- Filminor
- Screenplay
- Peter von Bagh, Risto Jarva, Jaakko Pakkasvirta
- Cinematography
- Antti Peippo
- Editor
- Risto Jarva
- Music
- Kaj Chydenius, Henrik Otto Donner
- Cast
- Arto Tuominen, Rita Vepsä