The 2012 we dreamed of in 1969 was very different. In this film, the official review of the Institute of History, after the restless 1960s and 1970s, shows that society has become liberal. Class boundaries no longer exist, and progress is the goal of all.

Documentarian Raimo Lappalainen (Arto Tuominen) is looking back at Finland in the late 60s and making a movie about sex symbol Saara Turunen (Ritva Vepsä), a nude model who dies at some point in the 70s. But as he gets deeper into her life, he discovers that the same issues her world struggled with haven’t truly gone away. Things get stranger when Kisse (Vepsä) plays the role of Saara in recreating her death. Ironically, this film’s director, Risto Jarva, would die young in a car crash in 1977.

This movie promised a future of people dancing by themselves in crowded clubs while wearing headphones, politically compromised media, Edie Sedgwick-looking doomed heroines, pushbutton instant food, unrest in a nuclear plant and inflatable see-through furniture. I should start a Letterboxd list of movies with transparent furnishings, starting with this movie, Too Beautiful to Die and Camille 2000.

Also, I learned from Kathy Fennessy’s Seattle Film Blog that co-writer Peter von Bagh—who worked on the script along with Jarva and Jaakko Pakkasvirta—wrote his master’s thesis on Vertigo. This makes the dead woman being reborn—or at least a look-alike appearing—make even more sense.

By the end, Lappalainen seems like no hero, as the leader of the protests mentions the title of the movie before being killed live on TV, an event that shatters Kisse and barely a notice from him. He seeks to control her in his work, using her as an object instead of a person; this follows through to his real life.

I am obsessed with the ancient future. It seemed like the world would be cleaner and better than the world we live in today. Is it a better place? This movie makes me doubt that. It would, however, be much more stylish.

You can get Time of Roses on Blu-ray directly from Deaf Crocodile. It comes with plenty of extras, including an hour-long documentary Risto Jarva, Tyotoverini (Risto Jarva, My Colleague), in which director Antti Peippo explores the life of the director; two of Jarva’s shorts, Pakasteet (Frozen Foods) and Tietokoneet Palvelevat (Computers Serve); a deleted scene and the original song “Pääskytorni” (“The Swallow Tower”); the trailer; new commentary by film critic, professor and programmer Olaf Möller; a new essay by filmmaker and critic Ville Suhonen of the Risto Jarva Association and newly translated extracts from Risto Jarva’s writings.

As with everything from Deaf Crocodile, this is an incredible release of a film that we may never see in America otherwise.

Sources

Time of Roses – WikiMili, The Best Wikipedia Reader. https://wikimili.com/en/Time_of_Roses