Ikitie

Ikitie by Antti Tuuri is a seriously great book about a man forcefully deported from Finland to Soviet Union after civil war. Unfortunately this movie fails to bring the epic story to life. It may not be wise or fair to compare a movie to the book it is based on, but this movie could have been so much more if it would have been done the right way. I wish the movie could have been twice as long so it would include all the key scenes that builds up the characters and the story.

The movie and book is called The eternal road, which was a route used by Lapuan liike to deport suspected communists to Soviet Union. In the film the story about the route was basically left out (one of the best part), and in the mean time so was all the possible scenes that would build up the character of Jussi Ketola, and gives the reader insight what Jussi Ketola is all about. In fact, all the characters in this movie are very poorly built, and so is the story. The film is just scenes and takes that are not explained at all, and do not even sum up as a story.

I wonder if my mistake was to read the book first, but this movie just made my heart ache by how poorly it was made. It looks great and the cast is good, sure, but it is just a weird combination of scenes that make no sense. Tommi Korpela is the perfect actor to play the role of Ketola, and I strongly believe this would have been the role of a lifetime for him.

Ikitie (The Eternal Road) is a morbid film of a man's attempts to get back home, set against the backdrop of the untold story about 10,000 people who voluntarily moved from North America to the Soviet Union to build a worker's paradise, but who eventually learned the true face of Stalin's U.S.S.R.

It is 1931, and the Great Depression is on. Jussi Ketola has recently moved back to Finland from the United States with his family. He has bought a farm, and tends pretty much to himself. All is good and well until right wing extremists, who claim Jussi to be a communist, decide to practice their favourite pastime, namely kidnapping Jussi, driving him a few hundred kilometers to the Soviet border zone, then shooting him (though it might sound odd, these things actually happened in Finland during that tumultuous time). Except that they botch the shooting part and Jussi, heavily wounded, barely escapes across the border to the U.S.S.R.

When Jussi wakes up in a hospital in the Soviet Union, he is greeted by a Finnish police working for the Soviets who, instead of letting Jussi go home, summarily accuse him of being a spy. Unable to escape, Jussi is sent out to a collective farm. This kolkhoz has been built by Americans and Canadians, but mostly by Finnish immigrants who had first moved to North America, but then moved to the U.S.S.R. Their common goal is to build A Worker's Paradise. Jussi's task, on the other hand, is to inform on any suspicious activity. And it is here where the story really begins.

Ikitie tells its disturbing story at a laid-back pace. It is not boring by any means, but the scenes, particularly during the first half of the film, are given plenty time to breath. The same goes for the actors. They have both the space and time to act with nuances. Helped by this, acting flows naturally. People speak their native or common languages (Finnish, English, Russian) with appropriate dialects. Cinematography is lovely, particularly when playing with darkness of the night without crushing everything to black. Colours are perhaps ever-so-slightly muted but still realistic, and - thankfully - there are no teal-and-orange scenes to be seen.

As time goes by in the film, tension slowly but surely rises, right until the dramatic ending. Adding to the tension and pain is the knowledge that things that we see in Ikitie actually did take place on a large scale in Stalin's U.S.S.R. during the purges of the 1930's.

What can I say? I saw Ikitie today at our local theater with my mother and son, and it left us discussing for hours, about local and international history, the Great Depression, the Finnish right-wing extremist movement, Stalin's purges, all of it. If that is not a sign of an exceptionally impressive film, I don't know what is.

Judgment: Highly recommended, just don't expect a light-hearted comedy!

2017 is the year that I started following Finnish movies too. Aki Kaurismäki's latest, "Toivon tuolla puolen", and "Tom of Finland" proved to be great starting points.

"Ikitie", on the other hand, reminds me that no matter how good it can get, there are always gonna be mediocre efforts as well.

It's a prestige project belonging to Finland 100 program - which celebrates a century of independence, and includes 13 Finnish movies largely funded by private sector.

It's all about a man (Tommi Korpela) forced to leave family and Finland to start a bitter new life in Soviet territory. He's always in trouble, not having a chance to return to his family, not being able to live peacefully as well.

This is connected to bigger if relatively forgotten part of history of early Soviet era. During the Great Depression of the 1930's, great father Stalin called American people to relocate to Soviet Union - to build a better world behind the iron curtain. Nearly 10,000 followed the call; their community is where Jussi ends up.

"Ikitie" was surely made for international attention and maybe foreign language Oscar in mind, so the makers have found it important to create a Finnish epic which looks like Hollywood project.

This has resulted in roaring success on visual side - production values are great, the movie looks truly beautiful -, but failure on creative side.

I am not familiar with the true story, or novel by Antti Tuuri, that the screenplay is based on, but the storytelling is just weak.

The events are not very varied, interesting or connected too, bringing us just a series of moments from one man's journey. The result is too shallow to have a natural fluidity or be able to address any complex issues contained in the story.

Sadly for a movie concentrating on the state of mind (and life) of the main character, it is not able to create a strong emotional connection with neither him nor any around him.

The characters are paper-thin which is neither a great start for building rapport with audience nor offering great performances, leaving us with exactly one semi-intriguing person on screen.

And this intriguing figure is not the central hero but his nemesis, played by Hannu-Pekka Björkman, who is able to surprise with some devilish charm and uncertainty, like a trickster figure.

The lack of development for Tommy Korpela's much-suffering main character leaves him mostly with a chance to look sad or remorseful.

So they have spent more energy playing with his appearances through time (beard, haircut, etc) rather than character development. Think Brad Pitt in "Legends of the Fall", only with more straight and much more good-looking version of Hillar Kohv.

The main character's life choices may also seem infuriating to modern audiences, especially as his behaviour and motifs are understandable mainly for those familiar with a history of Red Russia's oppression. The background needs some additional explanation to strike a chord with wider, maybe international, circle of movie lovers.

Also, "Ikitie" suffers from too much "acting", resulting in some unnatural-sounding dialogue, resembling a play rather than a movie. The usual problem with Estonian movies too.

The project has other connections to Estonia as well, including the shared history under Russian regime, filming locations (Sillamäe, Tallinn, Haapsalu, and Varangu) and some Estonian actors used, such as Hendrik Toompere Sr. and the late Lembit Ulfsak. But their roles are small.

Based on his resume so far, Antti-Jussi Annila is an interesting director for sure, but "Ikitie" is simply a disappointment, and not a very interesting disappointment at that.

By the way, the screenplay was written by A-J Annila and other famous Finnish filmmaker, Aku Louhimies, who was supposed to direct it but had to honor other commitments instead. Which is directing and co-writing a war drama "Tuntematon Sotilas" ("Unknown Soldier"), another famous movie from the Finland 100 program.

You can see my score right there. I will not describe the plot or go into spoilers -- there are plenty of that here already. Instead, I will discuss the things that were left storming in my mind after watching this beautifully delivered, tormenting and utterly heartbreaking movie. I'll touch on my thoughts about the movie as well, but I'm sure most couldn't care less about my thoughts, so I suggest you move on to the next review.

So... I am not against communism in principle. On a theory level it's a very nice and wholesome idea, but it could never work in our world. Not in humanity's current state and the inherent scarcity that comes with living in a finite, limited planet. There are unlimited futures before us and who knows, maybe in a few of them it'll become plausible and maybe even the norm. But it's hard to see our self-destructing species lasting long enough to see something utopistic like that.

I wanted to get that out of the way, lest someone would mistake my harsh stance against the soviets to be against communism as a concept. It's not.

Soviet Union was -- as all "transitional" dictatures always are -- a shameful stain in humanity's history. From an everyday perspective it was probably fine for some, if not most, but dictatures can never, not ever, exist without abundance of death, misery and loss of freedom.

There are plenty of books and films about the tragedies that took place both behind the curtain and in plain display. There's no lack of content from this perspective. I'm sure there's almost an equal amount of similar content, but from the opposite perspective. There are many sides to everything, nothing is plain black and white. But it'd take immense mental gymnastics not to see the SU for what it was: A tragedy for many, people and entire nations alike.

This movie breaks my heart. The entire concept, the utterly despicable act of forcefully hauling suspected communists beyond the border, even if not in preparation of shooting them directly afterwards, is such a hard thing to understand. It must've taken such a gigantic enmity to be able to do something like that to another human, a fellow citizen, in front of their family no less.

But we could never truly understand today what it must've been like back then, when the wounds of a civil war were still fresh in everyone's memory. And it might be incorrect to state that "we" as a collective could "never" understand such monstrous deeds. I'm certain there are many that can.

But I know I can't.

Well, my obvious and shameful privilege aside, and my fairly biased take on history, this was a great watch. The story feels real -- we've heard stories like this our entire lives -- and the cast does a great job bringing the characters alive.

There are some truly harrowing moments buried within. The movie does a sufficient job bringing forth the weight of those. It feels very heavy at times, especially towards the end. And it just keeps getting more and more rough.

I love the way the main character, Jussi, was written and portrayed. I haven't read the book this is apparently based on, but Jussi just feels very Finnish to me, in this movie at least. There's very little emotion in his face most of the time, though you can tell how he feels behind those eyes. But when he shows his feelings, it's a contained thunderstorm. He doesn't speak much, doesn't talk about himself either -- all these are things that a lot of people around the world would probably find utterly boring and plain -- but he breaks under pressure like most men would. There are no classical heroes in this story. Not one.

But there's soul in that. It's hard to put into words, but I could feel him, in a way. He straightens his back, utters no words, betrays no emotions, looks into the distance with empty eyes and accepts his place. Bides his time, or if worse would come to worst, he'd march towards his and his fellows' abrupt, unjustified end before a line of soviet rifles, with his chin up, silent and devoid of excess facial expressions.

There's a certain beauty in that. Though I recognize it's probably overly romanticized. But it's a movie after all, so I say it's only fitting.

A lot of the smaller arcs move a little chaotically. It's not hard to follow, really, but brings a certain disruption to the experience every once in a while. Though it might just be that it enhances it. Hard to say, since I enjoyed it thoroughly regardless.

It looks beautiful, in a somewhat gritty way. The steads, the nature, the props and clothing; it all seemed authentic enough for my peasant eyes.

There's one line, towards the end, that stuck with me. You'll know what I mean once you get there yourself.

All in all, it was a surprisingly good experience. I was expecting it to be just another overly corny and cheesy Finnish drama that takes place -- as these often do -- in the war and war-adjacent periods. But it turned out to be quite a bleak and slow-paced movie that has a certain soul to it. I'd recommend this to most.

WOW! What a powerful story about a period of history I knew nothing about. Stellar performances by the leads and the whole cast. I give this film an 8 (powerful history) out of 10. {Historical Drama}