Sauna

Strikingly beautiful Finnish art house 'horror' film about guilt, religion, sin and punishment, set in the 16th century, at the end of the Russian/Swedish war.

It's full of atmosphere, symbolism, and unanswered questions. Two Swedish brothers/soldiers -- one intellectual, the other violent and borderline mad -- come to a strange town where they are confronted with eerie reminders of their sins, and of those they have killed in war.

Slow paced, but not boring. However, the underlying ideas do get stretched a bit thin over time, and the occasional turn to horror clichés was a little disappointing given the generally high level of intelligence and originality.

Still, interesting enough that I would give it another look now that I understand what its getting at, and gorgeous enough that I'll still enjoy it, even if I'm once again left with mixed feelings about some of the content.

Mention also must be made of the arresting performance by Ville Virtanen as the violent Eerik, recalling Max Von Sydow in his prime.

I had quite high expectations of this movie and was a bit disappointed. It's an unusual, intelligent and creepy ghost story, but it has an ambition to do something more distinctive that I didn't feel was followed through completely.

The performances and screenplay are fine. The film is nicely shot, with some lovely moments but also some lapses into generic horror-movie gestures. The sauna itself is a fine addition to the history of scary buildings in movies -- it looks as if it doesn't belong in the landscape at all, and the minute you see it you know something's wrong. The cheesy orchestral score lets the film down a bit, though.

Not all of the things that happen along the way are explained; some of them just seem to be put there for the sake of being scary. The ending is impressive but it left me wondering whether all the pieces leading up to it really fitted together.

I suppose two different films seem to be fighting over the same 90 minutes: an art-house movie that uses elements of fairy tale to explore existential questions about sin and redemption and a haunted-house movie that works by jump-scares, toothless villagers and gushing blood. The two never really came together for me, but I can't say I didn't enjoy the ride.

The movie is beautifully done, with dark wet imagery and good acting. However, you either have to be Finnish to understand or I was too tired to get the message. All I could get was that for the Finns the sauna is a cultural heirloom, dating way before their christianizing, a place where they believed to wash their sins. Finns and their sins. Sorry, couldn't help it :) However, left long enough to rot, those sins become unattonable and even if you face them, it is pointless. I guess this is one of those life lessons that the Christian religion is desperately trying to hide from us.

Anyway, as I said, great imagery and the feeling of desolation and burden of sin is almost palpable. I liked the characters as well, deep and sharp. However, it was a slow thing and never in the movie there was any "aha!" moment. One has to make an effort to watch the film and to understand it. Being Finnish probably helps, too.

The supernatural permeates this enigmatic tale, in which three Russian soldiers, a Finnish warrior and his cartographer brother try to map borders, at the end of the bloody war between Russia and Finland (under the rule of Sweden) during the 16th century. There is something of a chivalrous nature in their mission, but the savage extermination of a peasant and his daughter, unleashes the center of the tragic story.

Halfway through the journey, the company comes across a village in the middle of marshy lands and, next to the settlement, a mysterious sauna, in which people can wash away the evils they have committed in their lives, according to a Russian text, written by the monks who originally inhabited the village.

In the final third, horror dominates the story, following the lines of graphic terror, in a way that loses the balance of the previous hour. Until that moment the film has been carried with an inscrutable tone, a foreboding atmosphere and fear inspired by the unknown, accompanied by a constant musical commentary that does not get in the way, like other times, in so many films. The climax scenes are more repellent than terrifying and not because they are visually unpleasant or ineffective, but because of their cryptic quality, because they are so inexplicable, between superstitious behavior and the true expiation of the guilt of these men. Fortunately, in the coda, the film resumes its initial tone and returns to its opening scenes, which suggest the ironic final destination of the cartographic mission.

«Sauna» is a very interesting work that deserves to be seen, whose mixture of history, politics and terror, reminded me of «Ravenous», Antonia Bird's exceptional horror drama on expansionism and cannibalism (and cowardice). The film is guided with admirable rigor by the director and interpreted with aplomb by the entire cast. Despite everything, the recommendation persists on my part, because everything that precedes is so good. that the movie deserves it.

If someone told me "hey, watch this movie about a haunted sauna, its a really scary horror movie!".. I guess I'd stay as far away from the movie as possible. Luckily I saw some pictures of this Finnish movie and they looked really great.

Everyone looking for a horror movie should stay away from this. Its pretty laughable that so many people focus on the sauna and some ghosts in this movie as typical horror clichés while the director works so obviously on making every single piece and image in this movie a symbol for guilt.

"Sauna" or "Filth" (which is the far more fitting title referring to a statement by one of the Russian soldiers in this movie) is placed after the Russian/Swedish war around 1600 when a group of Russian and Swedish soldiers are setting for the new borders. The opening of the movie with the drawing of borders in blood and then the first shots of water turning red already indicate where this movie is going. Everything is carried by some great cinematography and the lead characters, 2 brothers of a very different kind. One is Knut, a mapmaker with high goals, the other is Erik, a soldier with a grim past who has his problems adjusting to the new peace.

Erik constantly looking for trouble soon gets the group of soldiers into problems when messing with a family. The town the group soon finds in the middle of a swamp becomes a clear symbol of Erics previous atrocities with as many inhabitants as victims on Erics list, a strange girl reminding them of recent wrongdoings (also involving a sauna) and animals and people who clawed out their eyes. The whole issue of not being able to face your past is present throughout the movie that is more like a fable. There is plenty of interesting historical information as well as philosophical dialog including the story about the king and filth or the thoughts if hell is just a place that god turned his back on. The place is soon presented and the irony is that yet everyone is fighting for the land soon there is a place that no one wants to take but rather wants to give to his enemy.

"Sauna" is full of these abstract images and the finale is far from a clear resolution. After all the director clearly tries to make the viewer have his own thoughts. Actually I am still working on figuring the closing images out but however this is a damn interesting and different movie with great cinematography, acting and an interesting setting. There sure are some horror elements in this movie, but I'd rather consider this a mix of art-house movie and drama and its definitely worth giving a chance.