Screaming Men

The Finnish word huutaa signifies anything man can do with a loud voice: scream, shriek, screech, cry, howl, roar with laughter, et cetera. But it is foremost a way to express the most individual, spontaneous, uncontrolled and unlimited human emotions. This is what Petri Sirviö teaches a Japanese class. And he knows, because as the conductor of the Miskuoro Huutajat (Screaming Men’s Chorus), Sirviö is an expert in screamology. Mika Ronkainen followed him and his men on a tour along various places on earth, far from their home base in the Finnish city of Oulo, according to Sirviö the capital of Screamlandia. Suggestive flashes and a split-screen edit enhance the effect of freeze-dried humour, which immediately sets you off laughing. The concerts by the choir of around twenty-five men, which Sirviö founded thirteen years ago, are performances in the best tradition of Dada. Auditioning choir candidates are tested with respect to lung capacity and ability to scream continuously. All sorts of texts are gratefully adapted into screaming material: law texts, poems, operating instructions, children’s songs and folk songs. The latter threatens to cause a diplomatic stir at a concert in Paris, but in the end everybody sees the humour of it all. It is as certain as an icebreaker in pack ice: by raising one’s voice, man raises himself.