Spring 1943
Listen up! This short story made for the Finnish Broadcasting Corporation (Yle) might be the least known entry in its author’s filmography: apparently there is no sign of it in any registers. A true rarity, this – and a find.
Set in the Continuation War, Spring 1943 shows Mänttäri at his gravest, a ballad of a desantnik dropped in the snowy landscape and a boy protecting him and trying to understand the fighting of the adults. A fearful atmosphere develops around the little cottage community and the spy-because-of-circumstances touchingly portrayed by Ville Sandqvist ("I’m not Russian, I’m Karelian”), even though everyone here is just a normal human being. Such is the mechanism of war.
Mänttäri’s ear for language is evident in the skillfully everyday dialogue, written by the auteur in sunny Greece, naturally. Asko Mänttäri composed the subdued and moody music. This film is worth listening to for a variety of reasons. (Anton Asikainen)
Language: Finnish, subtitles: English
Sotaerakko
After the studio era came to an end with the actor’s strike and the breakthrough of television, Finnish film moved on to a more realistic register than previously, both in modes of expression and choice of subject matter. In this new situation, the artistically strongest results were often attained in television. One of the leading names of this movement was director Rauni Mollberg, who rose to fame with his literary adaptations. Before his big screen debut The Earth is a Sinful Songs (1973), Mollberg made for television in a similarly naturalistic style Sotaerakko (1972), based on a true anecdote from the Winter War. In the lead role is the excellent amateur actor Aimo Saukko, one of the director’s discoveries.
After the war begins, Heikki Klemetti is left alone in a deserted house near the border. Mollberg relies on visual expression and subdued acting. Without eschewing even shock effects, he creates a strong, even existentially tinged film about one man’s life oppressed by forces of nature and war. In the present global situation, the film gains new resonance. (Rami Nummi)
Language: Finnish, no subtitles
In the presence of Anssi Mänttäri
