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To Make a Touching Description of Nature - Go out to the Wild If actors exit their five-star hotels only to work for a few hours per day, the silver screen reveals this and gives them away immediately. This is true especially for descriptions of the North. Movies should always be made on the nature's own terms, not man's. Points like this one were raised in a lecture held by the Finnish film guru Peter von Bagh. The lecture was a joint venture of the Vapriikki museum centre and the Tampere University Institute for Extension Studies. Western-Northern Some Finnish filmmakers use Lapland like their foreign counterparts use the Wild West. Jesting and going on binges have been typical methods in the Lapland-style of filmmaking. Some of the Northern movies could just as well have been shot somewhere else. Von Bagh's example of this is the Reino Helismaa film Rovaniemen markkinat (At Rovaniemi's Market), which was shot mostly in a sand pit in Malmi, Helsinki. Emotion and Gorgeous Nature During the course of his lecture, von Bagh showed twenty-odd samples of Northern films. The start of the cavalcade was expected: An eskimo in black and white fixing a sledge amid the howling wind and the scurrying snow. Samples of Markku Lehmuskallio's film Vaivaiskoivujen maa (Skierri) were shown with its images of reindeers, crying children, the wind roaring… According to von Bagh, the Finnish director Valentin Vaala made gorgeous movies in Lapland in the late 1940's, even though he did not particularly enjoy the place. Maaret - tunturien tyttö (Maaret, Daughter of the Mountains) is a romantic description of Lapland, with a Lappish girl playing the leading part for the first time. The language spoken in the 1940's films was flawless, and the urban man would stroll the mountains in a clean city suit. The casual outdoor clothes of today were unknown at the time. Family values like home and marriage prevailed, as in other films of the period. First Eco-Film in 1939 According to Peter von Bagh, the first Finnish environmental film is Vihreä kulta (Green Gold), directed by Valentin Vaala in 1939. The heroine was played by Hanna Taini, whose looks matched the beauty ideals of the time. Her character is a ravishing upper-class executive lady from Helsinki. The board of her company has decided to place a handsome forestry officer called Mr. Suonperä at her "perfect and full-time disposal." Although the roles depicted in the film have survived in industry up to the last decade, the lady's huge wolfskin fur coat would nowadays probably make the animal rights activists grab their spray paint cans. The Earth is a Sinful Song Von Bagh stated that especially the French have compared the depiction of northern nature in Rauni Mollberg's 1970's film Maa on syntinen laulu (The Earth is a Sinful Song) to classical paintings. The Finnish viewers and critics perhaps paid a little too much attention to the wretched details instead of the whole. The details were the main subject of discussion at the time. The White Reindeer above the Rest The White Reindeer (Valkoinen Peura), completed in 1952, was awarded in Cannes in 1953 and later, among others, in Karlovy Vary.
- The movie received enormous attention immediately because of its mystique and magnificent filming. The main actress and scriptwriter Mirjami Kuosmanen, the wife of director Erik Blomberg, did an impressing job on the film. It has been asked several times if the film could be redone in other countries, among others in the United States, von Bagh tells. The movie follows the great narration traditions. It has a great sense of primary elements: snow, fire and heat. The feeling of mystique has been added by a telling the story with singing. Some parts of the film feel almost like a horror film, von Bagh thinks. Von Bagh also thinks that The White Reindeer is probably the most significant film of the North made in Finland. Folkloristic Lapland The folkloristic Lapland of French cinema looks like it has been taken from the pages of a fashion magazine. In the dances, one does not see the beerbellied men and the clowns cracking jokes in the modern pubs. Von Bagh thinks that later, Lapland became a Lappish Disneyland in films - the centre of useless merchandise. - Humans often unconsciously describe their spiritual experiences in movies and books. Von Bach commends Jorma Lehtola's book "Lailasta Lailaan" (From Laila to Laila), which reflects the writer's deep relationship with Lapland and his broad knowledge on the subject. He also appreciates the famous Paasilinna brothers' works that deal with Lapland. Pekka and Pätkä in Search of the Abominable Snowman The Finnish viewer may also be surprised with the scene taken from a Pekka ja Pätkä film from 1954. The clips of the Snowman and Justiina's (Pekka's wife) underskirt seem much funnier than many of the modern Finnish comedies. Nowadays, there might be more appliers for the part of the Snowman, since the original actor, Vihtori Välimäki, would not be half a meter longer (205 cm) than his actor colleagues. While looking at the clips from the movies of the north it seems that even the greatest modern technology could not convey the genuineness and the devotion which the viewers sense from the old black-and-white films.
TEXT: Eeva-Liisa Vallin |
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Festival News 2002 festnews@uta.fi |