Two Bodies on a Beach
2019 · 20m · Finland
Directed by Anna Paavilainen
Genres: dark comedy, drama, thriller
Tones: darkly comic, provocative, surreal
A woman wakes tied in plastic wrap on a beach and sets out to strike back, joined by an older woman pushed to society's margins.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A woman wrapped in plastic on a beach recruiting a social outcast for revenge is exactly the kind of premise that makes programmers nervous and makes me sit up straight—it's got that surreal, unapologetic bite that refuses to be palatable, and Paavilainen commits to the bit without winking.
The formal restraint here is impressive; Paavilainen constructs a darkly comic thriller that knows its lineage in feminist body horror and pulp revenge narratives, executing the tonal shifts with editorial precision that rewards close attention.
The decision to anchor this wild premise on the dynamic between two women at society's edges—rather than spectacle—is what saves it; the quiet moments between them carry more weight than the surrealism around them, and that choice is everything.