Let me first just say that I sure am glad that
Finland is part of NATO. I want them on my side. Tough mother fuckers.
That is what happens when you get invaded often enough and with winters and
darkness that stretch on forever. The heroic protagonist in this Finnish
film is all the tough guys of movies rolled into one. Rambo, the Terminator,
John Wick. He takes on mythic proportions. A Finnish God of Old. Ukko, the
God of Sky and weather who carried a hammer and axe. A refusal to be defeated,
to give up or to die. Or to forgive. As soon as that first knife stab that
begins on one side of the head and ends up on the other, you know you are
in for an ultra-violent ride but it is against Nazi's, so a part of us relishes
it. Not modern Nazis though that would be welcome as well, but the old-fashioned
Nazis trying to take over the world. It is 1944 and Germany is in retreat
everywhere. Finland had been partly occupied by both the Russians and the
Germans and now the Germans were leaving with Finnish resistance killing
them as they went.
But one man had retired from the war, living alone in the cold harsh tundra
which was flat and unwelcoming. The way he liked it. He was digging for gold.
Not a young man, into his sixties one would guess but his age was hard to
tell beneath the layers of dirt, the weather-beaten face with creases so
wide they were like trenches during WW1. A rough spikey beard. His hands
caked with mud, fingernails broken, a body scarred with hardships and torture.
His dog and horse keep him company. His only emotion shown is when he discovers
a strike of gold. His eyes light up like he found God in the dirt. He digs
it up, packs it up, loads it on his horse and the three of them begin the
long journey to a city where he can cash it in. He passes Germans in retreat,
bodies hanging from trees and just keeps his eyes down and his business his
own.
Then a small group of Germans stop him, talk about killing him just for the
hell of it and discover his gold. All the Germans are portrayed as savage
psychos. Pure evil. Get down on your knees old man, be prepared to die. And
the killing begins. Not his. Theirs. Violently, quickly, mercilessly. He
continues his journey as if he had just stopped to take a pebble out of his
shoe. But an entire squad of Germans with tanks come after him because of
the gold. They know their cause is lost and they want to go home with riches.
It soon goes from edging on the cliff of reality to total absurdity - he
survives stepping on a mine, a hanging, a plane crash - we have entered myth.
And he keeps killing Nazis. The Germans have kidnapped six women that they
use as sex toys and keep in a truck. But they are Finnish too and get their
pound of flesh in a flash of machine gun fire. A wonderful sense of revenge.
It is very entertaining, very bloody, very unbelievable. The scene of him
taking out shrapnel from his wounds was tough for me to get through.
The film directed by Jalmari Helander clearly has a lot of Hollywood influences
- in particular I thought of Tarantino in the way he divides it into chapters,
the sudden violence and the black humor that undergirds the whole thing.
Inglorious Basterds came to mind. I know next to nothing about contemporary
Finnish cinema but you have to wonder if there are other gems like this one.
Polished, beautifully shot and stunning vistas. And a lot of dead Nazis.
