Ruthless Times – Songs of Care
Susanna Helke / / 2022
Finnish docu-musical about elderly care and its exhausted employees, dosed with black deadpan humour and all the absurdity that comes with economics drumming over care. A true original of a film that sends a warm greeting to the unsung heroes of the everyday.
When no one listens to what you say, you can to try say it again. Other times you have to shout it. But maybe you can also try singing it. In a choir. It certainly works in this Finnish docu-musical (!) about elderly care and its exhausted nurses, who have been shouting about the state of things for so long that they soon can’t take it anymore. So now they sing. Together and in an insistent chorus about the care work they have to perform every day and the miserable conditions they have to do it in. Everywhere lurks the absurdity of ethical work being defined by economics. Care tasks are being privatised, walls are becoming interactive and robots are replacing people who are relegated to small office boxes where they have to carry out their care work by telephone. The song resonates everywhere where the state claims to prioritise a good, well-functioning welfare system.