Love Records - Anna mulle Lovee

It is bold to start making a film about such elements of close history that the people who experienced them are mostly alive, and about people that many others remember even if the characters themselves had perished. This is a gamble that Aleksi Mäkelä has taken full on. He is honest, in a sense, by not striving to make most of his characters look and act like their paragons. The film is about three friends (Atte Blom, Henrik-Otto Donner and Chrisse Schwindt) and their crazy idea to start a record company that would produce only their favourite music. The idea was crazy because around the time in the mid-60s the production of records was strictly dominated by a few monopolies that did not tolerate competition from miniature peers. To everyone's surprise, Love Records began to succeed mainly by producing political music and prog rock. The monopolies countered by placing Love under a distribution boycott. Despite that, Love was still successful but the leading trio ran into conflicts. The film focuses more on the three lead characters' relationships and not so much on the music. Here and there we see coeval celebrities, like Toivo Kärki, Katri Helena and Badding Somerjoki. The political side of music is hardly touched. (VpM) (Midnight Sun Film Festival)