Läpi usvan

That's it! That's it! THE quintessential Finnish post-war melodrama, with all the elements that one might expect: the seedy, foggy harbours with Finnish men playing black American sailors (saying things like "Uuh beibi, prittee beibi, laav, laav"); sinful ladies with never-ending cigarettes and eagerness to pimp their lush bodies for a pair of silk stockings or a drink; a pure as snow ballerina, stuck into the world of gangsters' molls and dirty underground joints but with a dream flickering behind her Bamby eyes and a tragedy in store for her; and the greatest of all the clichés - an innocent, virtuous young man (of course with an gray, sticky sweet little 80-year old knitting mother somewhere in a small town and a devoted, plain girl waiting for him and jumping greedily at every opportunity to sacrifice her life for his redemption), whose downwards spiral from one casual drink, poured by a woman of ill repute, to perpetual delirium tremensis, degeneration, crime and murder takes about two weeks, neatly rolling before your eyes.

Trust me - the pathos, the moral message and the relentless narrative will make you quiver in total ecstasy of guilt and pleasure. Every other shot or line of dialog is a total hoot. And yet - there's so much to learn! :) I may be a freak, but this is my idea of a night at the pictures. Don't try to measure this film by the standards of LIFE - after such films, it's the LIFE that got small!