“The Unknown Soldier” is considered to be the greatest Finnish war movie. Directed by Aku Louhimies, it is the most successful Finnish movie of the 21st Century and the most expensive Finnish film ever. The movie is based on a famous novel by Vaino Linna and it is the third movie version of the book. The production used over 3,000 extras, some provided by the Finnish Defence Forces. The main actors were put through a boot camp to learn wilderness skills, how to cross-country ski, and how to stay warm in the winter. Sadly, an extra was killed in the scene where the horses panicked under a artillery barrage. He was crushed under a horse carriage.
The movie covers a small unit of Finnish soldiers in the Continuation War (1941-44). It opens with an intriguing scene. Two boys are swimming in a river and this morphs into the same two being shot at as their unit retreats across the river. One of them is killed. Their machine gun unit was originally deployed in Eastern Finland in June, 1941. The government lies to them and proclaims that they are defending their homeland from another (the Winter War had ended fifteen months earlier) attack by the Soviet Army. Their first action is in northern Karelia in July. They attack and immediately go to ground due to Russian fire. Their captain arrives and leads a charge, but is cut down. This will be the first of many unpredictable deaths. The men respond and capture the hill. The combat is brief, but realistic. From here, the movie settles into a pattern of rest and exposition followed by combat. In the quieter scenes, several characters are developed typical of a small unit movie. There is the noble officer who grows into the job, the black marketeer who is in it for the loot, the psychopath, the jokester, the innocent private, etc. The main character is Corporal Rokka (Eero Aho) who is a veteran of the Winter War. He has to leave his farm family to bring some experience to the unit. He arrives at the 32 minute mark of the movie. (But sooner than the two other versions.) He is cynical and does not like discipline. He also is a damned good soldier who knows more than the officers. The movie follows these men as they campaign into the Soviet Union and back again. Occasionally we are told where they are so we know where the deaths occur. The movie fits squarely into the “who will survive?” subgenre. The second half of the film is a realistic depiction of a unit withdrawing under pressure. You don’t have to be a WWII nerd to figure their initial successes are going to turn around so we can come full circle to that opening river crossing scene.
ACTING: A
ACTION: A (8/10)
ACCURACY: N/A
PLOT: A
REALISM: A
CINEMATOGRAPHY: A
SCORE: C (didn’t notice it)
SCENE: Racca holds off an enemy unit by himself
QUOTE: Replacement: What’s it like to shoot a man? Racca: I don’t know. I have only shot enemies. Replacement: “Aren’t they people? Racca: No.
I am a big fan of foreign language war films (with some exceptions like Bollywood films). I don’t mind reading subtitles. Finland is not at the upper rank of war movies, but it has produced some good movies like “Talvisota”. “The Unknown Soldier” is the best war movie that has come out of Finland.
The acting is excellent, especially Aho. He created one of my favorite war movie characters – Antero Rokka. If you like Sgt. Steiner from “Cross of Iron”, you’ll like him too. When asked who he is, he responds: “I’m a model for the gun industry.” He defies authority (and gets away with it) more than most anti-heroes. Eero Aho won the Jussi (Finland’s Oscar) for Best Leading Actor. He is the most distinct character, but the others leave their mark as well. It’s an ensemble effort. They portray the soldiers realistically as only the higher officers are gung-ho. Their dialogue is not flowery and is a bit terse as the movie does not have much banter. It focuses on the common soldiers and the effects of war on them.
The movie is firmly anti-war, but not through graphic wounds and deaths. It’s hard core enough to get the point across, however. The combat is superior to most modern war movies. It starts with brief scenes and gradually the scenes get longer. Most of the action occurs in forests and hand-held cameras put us with the men. We know most of the men are not going to survive four years of it, but still the deaths are shocking in their unpredictability. There is little on the home front (although Rokka makes a couple of trips home to see his resilient wife – a character that does not appear in the book or in the other versions) and the movie is not interested in giving a big picture view of the war. The enemy is faceless and we get little on command decisions. There is also nothing about the German role. I would assume the Finnish audience already knew the relationship. The movie is not big on strategy, but is strong on tactics. Their actions in combat ring true. They throw grenades and then charge, for instance. They flank their enemy. The movie realistically depicts trench warfare. The soldiers reload. Tanks use their machine guns. Two rareties in war movies.
A non-Finnish viewer won’t learn much about the war besides its effects on typical soldiers. What you will learn is the Finnish army was not a typical army. One theme is the army was not big on discipline. At one point, they abandon a position against orders to hold at all costs. Rokka sums it up: “We ain’t here to die; we’re here to kill.” Another theme is while morale may seep away, the men remain resilient. They sing a lot. Although not propagandistic, the movie was meant to honor the Finnish soldiers who fought in the war, but not mythologize them. When outnumbered or outflanked, they run. There is little indication that they were being used a pawns for their jingoistic and vengeance-minded government and by their Nazi “allies”.
Don’t watch it as a history lesson, although there was nothing I saw that was off-kilter. Watch it because it is very entertaining and you’ll learn that Finland fought in WWII, albeit for the wrong side. And their soldiers may have been allied with the Wehrmacht, but they were just regular Joosefs.
The Unknown Soldier (1955)
This version is the biggest box office film (per capita) in Finnish history with almost half the population seeing it in a theater. It was the longest (181 minutes) movie in Finnish history up until then and the most costly at the time. In 2007, the Finnish public voted it the greatest Finnish movie. Due to the fact that the movie was not supported by the Finnish army, a lot of footage was used.
The movie has basically the same plot as the 2017 version. There are some significant differences. It gives no time frame and we don’t know where the unit is. It has more soldier banter than 2017 so we get to know the main characters a little better. There is less combat and most of it is crammed into the last act. The movie rushes to kill off characters in a sprint to the end. The biggest difference is in the characterizations. Rokka is more verbose and more humorous. (Aho’s Rokka does not smile and is seething most of the time.) He is not the main character. Heitenen is. Oddly, this Rokka is too similar to Heitenen in that both are cynical jokesters. The enlisted men are more insubordinate than in 2017.
1955 is a good movie. The unit is full of intriguing characters. The ensemble is strong. The combat is not high on quantity, but it does have quality, especially at the end. The film finishes strong and bitterly. But that was the reality of Finland’s role in the war. The last act bookends the opening which makes it clear the movie will be depressing. 1955 does a good job differentiating between the officers and the men. All three movies are harsh on the commanders because they sometimes want to be martinets, but they back down when the soldiers resist. Kudos to all three for being honest about the army. They are tributes to the resiliency of the army, but they depict the insubordination common in the troops.
GRADE = B
Unknown Soldier (1985)
The second version was aimed at a new generation and people who preferred their war movies in color and with no music. (A soundtrack was created, but not used.) It was not appealing to the younger generation in its length (199 minutes). It also did not appeal by having well-known actors. Most of the cast was unknowns. I guess that is appropriate given the title of the film. Director Rauni Mollberg taps into the recent trend of hand-held cinematography to make the combat more visceral. The combat is brief, but there are a lot of scenes with action. The insubordination is a bigger theme than in the other two films. The officers are either wimpy martinets or one of the boys. There is more marching/talking scenes. There's a lot of griping. And yet, it is hard to identify the characters. And the talk is boring. All three movies have different main characters. This film focuses on Lt. Koskela. He is not the anti-hero that Rokka is. He is the officer who cares more for his men than his superiors do. In all three movies, Koskela violates stand your ground orders in order to save his men. Rokka does not even arrive until the 1:14 mark. Once he arrives, he has the same incidents as in the other two movies. For example, Rokka slacks off on guard duty and is punished by having him beautify the officers’ area. He goes ballistic when called on the carpet and refuses to do it.
This version is the worst of the three and yet it is still a good movie. It has the best artillery effects. A lot of trees and houses died for the film. The combat itself is a bit on the unrealistic side. It shares a tactical faux pas with the first film. The men charge with a heavy machine gun firing from behind them! Hello, friendly fire. However, the movie does make you feel like you are with the men when they are in combat. But it shares with the other two the abrupt ending of action scenes. All three movies end scenes with no resolution. For example, when the unit faces several tanks, Rokka uses a bundled charge to destroy it. “And, scene!” yelled the director. What about the other tanks? How did they deal with them? On the other end of the spectrum, there are times when the unit retreats, but we don’t know why.
Another thing the three movies share is they intend for the audience to empathize with the soldiers and dislike the higher officers for their lack of empathy. The three focus on discipline. And the implication is that strict discipline is wrong. We root for Rokka as he sneers at stupid rules and we give a thumbs up when Koskela orders a retreat and has his men throw the heavy machine guns in a pond. The dastardly major shoots one of the men to try to halt a retreat. He get what he deserves, right? Well, actually wrong. All three movies do not give a view of the big picture, but it is likely that when Koskela orders the retreat, he probably was opening a gap in the line which would have been fatal to the units on each side. "Stand your ground” orders can seem cruel, but it is up to the commanders to make decisions for the good of their units and it is dangerous for lower officers to disobey those orders. Ironically, Koskela would have been executed if he was in his allies (the Germans) army. And it would have been justified. Another good example of the movie’s unrealistic handling of insubordination is the incident where Rokka is caught shirking his sentry duty. We cheer when Rokka chews out the officer who sentences him to a bull shit punishment. He even threatens to take some with him if the officer tries to force him. If you have seen a lot of war movies, you’ll be surprised that the officer backs down. If you had to be in an army, it would have been good to be in the Finnish army, right? You don’t have to obey stupid orders! Now, let’s dig into this incident. Rokka is assigned the duty of using a periscope to sound the alarm if the Russians make an attack. But he is just sitting there allowing the Russians to creep up. Not only should the officer be pissed, but his mates should be upset. He is putting their lives in danger. Imagine Steiner doing that. Or finding one of his men slacking off like that.
GRADE = B-
Or you could rank them based on the number of songs:
1955 – 9
1985 – 6
2017 - 8
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