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Thus speaks Wikipedia: "Max Manus (1914–1996) was a Norwegian resistance fighter during World War II. He was a pioneer of the Norwegian resistance movement and was arrested by the Gestapo in 1941. He escaped to the United Kingdom for training and went back as a saboteur for the Norwegian Independent Company 1, better known as Lingekompaniet. He became a specialist in ship sabotage, was famous for being one of the most brilliant saboteurs during World War II, and after the war he wrote several books about his adventures." Hmm, sounds like it was only a question of time before this guy's life story would be made into a movie!

In its native Norway the film has been highly popular among the public which is not hard to understand considering it is a very traditional and technically well-made war film. The basis of the plot was already summarized in the first paragraph: a volunteered veteran of the Finnish Winter War, Max Manus (Aksel Hennie) is enraged to see his beloved Norway being taken over by the Nazis in the early 1940s and quickly organizes an underground resistance movement with his friends Kolbein, Tallak and Gram (Christian Rubeck, Mats Eldøen and Nicolai Cleve Broch). Ships are sunk and bullets fly but Manus never loses his hope in the face of the enemy, personified in the Gestapo officer Siegfried Fehmer (Ken Duken).

The filmmakers are clearly well aware of the conventions of heroic war movies and utilize them unrestrainedly in the story. The cinematography is pleasantly brownish-yellowish in the interior scenes and creates an atmosphere of old photographs that always suits well movies set in recent history. The exteriors are also filmed beautifully, particularly the short training scenes in Scotland, and the night scenes bask in pretty twilight blue. Unfortunately the professionalism of the production also leads to overt Hollywood-style conventionality of the plot: of course there is a romance (with a woman named Tikken, played by Agnes Kittelsen), of course friends get killed, of course the good are good and the bad are bad. I understand that many of these things actually did happen in real life but since this is not a documentary, they could have been changed a little in order to spice up the tale with something more unexpected than the obvious hero plot.

OK, some of the mine-setting scenes are fairly suspenseful and the story occasionally catches a beautiful sense of melancholy, most notably at the end. In general, the plot is at its most interesting when examining Manus' traumatic Winter War memories and feelings of guilt when his friends and innocent people are punished for his rebellious actions; I wish such inner demons would have been paid more attention at the expense of the Nazis, the obvious enemy. There are also some flat-out clichés in the movie, such as the bad guys being lousy marksmen, and the overly shaky camera during several emotionally charged moments annoyed the heck out of me.

Be that as it may, I am sure there is an audience for Max Manus outside Norway as well. Personally the thin drama plot did not get me hooked very much but friends of traditionally heroic resistance tales should find everything they are looking for in the film. Furthermore, Aksel Hennie in the titular role bears an uncanny resemblance to a young Steve Buscemi – never a bad thing! So, go ahead and give it a look if it sounds like your kind of movie; you might end up enjoying it a lot more than I did.

"Be pleased then, you the living, in your delightfully warmed bed, before Lethe's ice-cold wave will lick your escaping foot." This quote from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe begins You, the Living, the currently latest feature film of the Swedish auteur director Roy Andersson. Considering how easy it would have been for me to go through all four of his full-length films made during his decades-spanning career, I now wonder why I haven't watched any of his work before seeing this one last night. Well, better late than never, they say, and I'm certainly happy that I finally decided to give his work a go because I haven't been this impressed by a movie in a long while.

As mentioned, I haven't seen any of Andersson's previous works, so I cannot tell for sure how closely You, the Living resembles them thematically, but judging from what I've heard, his visual and directorial style has not changed dramatically between this and his previous effort Songs from the Second Floor (2000). This type of bleak, grayish cinematography (here provided by Gustav Danielsson) has often been used to convey a feel of suffocating mundanity; in this case the visuals support Andersson's very long takes and nearly complete lack of camera movement that create stylistic connections to the works of, say, Yasujirô Ozu, Michael Haneke and Jaime Rosales. I know many people do not appreciate such slowness and artificiality but personally I have been a fan of static shots for a long time and think that they allow a special opportunity to present certain calmness and meticulous planning that moving cameras and quick cuts do not allow.

As for the obligatory plot description, in this case writing one is difficult since the movie consists of partially overlapping vignettes of ordinary life in a Swedish city rather than a straightforward and easily summarizable story. To me the most remarkable characters include at least a lonely girl named Anna (Jessika Lundberg) who briefly meets her favourite rock star Micke (Eric Bäckman) in a bar and spends the rest of the movie futilely searching for him. Also worth mentioning are a self-pitying woman named Mia (Elisabeth Helander) and a carpenter (Leif Larsson) who recounts one of his terrifying nightmares that we get to witness in an illustrated form along with several other dreams by other characters. These are not the only people we follow during the film but they are the ones I felt closest to, especially Anna, so I will leave the rest of the people to be discovered by new audiences themselves.

The tone of the scenes can be best described as tragicomic; not often does one see such seamless unity of tragedy and comedy within one movie or scene. Awkward silences, wide shots of people who never get too close to each other... there is something very characteristically Nordic about these little snippets of life. Take for example the carpenter's Kafkaesque nightmare that starts tingling in anticipation and advances via laugh-out loud comedy to alienated absurd tragedy all within minutes – masterful handling of the audience's emotions! Another highlight and perhaps the most touching part of the whole film is Anna's dream which she presents straight to the camera. The beautiful guitar notes, the rising music and the cheering crowd outside create a wonderfully beautiful image which is only elated by the fact that we already know it is just a dream.

Dreams in general are a major motif in the film; it both starts and ends with one, blurring the borders of bleak reality and mysterious dream logic. Perhaps not surprisingly, the nature of death (and inevitably life) also comes to mind when thinking of important themes examined by the film. We witness a character's unexpected death and the aforementioned Goethe quote has already set the mood rather dark right from the beginning (the quote also ties in with the train scene; note how its destination is marked as Lethe, a river in the Hades of Ancient Greek mythology). Returning closer to regular life, problems in communication are a repeated theme as well. Characters constantly misunderstand, fail to hear or just ignore each other as if they are all blind to the inner similarities between them. An obvious example is the scene where Mia rejects the flowers given to her by a strange man. To some his subsequent reaction could easily come across as heavy-handed and overdone but I think it is a powerful little moment that stands out among many other strong scenes. The scene with the frustrated psychiatrist in particular feels like Andersson talking directly to us by breaking the fourth wall: "Live, don't lament!"

Andersson's use of a traditional hymn, upbeat Dixieland jazz and military marches throughout the film, sometimes lingering softly in the background, sometimes overtly dominating the mood, can often be seen as lightening up the tone but also making everything appear utterly laughable in a way, once again harking back to the excellent sense of tragicomedy that the director utilizes in the film. The jazz score is probably most notably used at the very ending which I would rather not give away, as ambiguous as it is. The final shot truly elevates the story to yet another level: will this be the end for everything? Is it all a collective dream? I am not sure, but I cannot think of a better ending for the movie.

After witnessing such a withdrawn whirlwind of comedy, tragedy, the mundane and the otherworldly, ordinary movies just feel so... ordinary. More knowledgeable audiences may find it plausible to criticize Andersson for excessive repetition or not developing his style actively enough between films (I wouldn't know, having seen only this one) but since I am just trying to capture my own first reaction here, I can only praise this work of art: You, the Living is a wonderful tale of humanity and should be immediately seen by anyone looking for both emotional and entertaining cinematic experiences.

After Kesäillan valssi (1951) proved out to be very successful among the public, an independent sequel Onnelliset was produced a few years later, continuing the style of writing a drama story around Oskar Merikanto's music. Most of the central actors reprise their roles, notably Eeva-Kaarina Volanen and Leif Wager who play Annina and Lauri Alanko, the couple from the first movie still happily married with a young son. They are not completely financially secure, so Lauri agrees to take up a job of accompanying a famous opera diva named Delia Rosati (Maaria Eira) on her European tour. Delia's seductive advances toward Lauri put his faithfulness to Annina to a tough test but the young wife is not without attention at home either: her friend and employer Veikko Kuusi (Leo Riuttu) has grown very fond of her and is favoured by Annina's bourgeois mother.

If Kesäillan valssi focused on the beginning of Lauri and Annina's relationship with light little songs and almost comedic atmosphere, the sequel s clearly more mature and serious in its approach to the characters. Like the first film, Onnelliset feels a little divided in the middle: the first half is dedicated to portraying the development of Lauri and Delia's relationship, while the latter half focuses on said relationship's effects on Annina and her family. The pacing is rather slow and big emotions only occasionally bubble up to the surface. There is also some social commentary about the political situation of the early 20th century when Finland was still under the command of the Russian Tsar. I know I criticized Kesäillan valssi for being too lightweight for its own good but here it feels like such a problem has been overcorrected and everything feels too dry and serious. It could also be a good thing though, since all viewers can now choose their favourite of the two movies based on their personal preference between comedy and serenity.

The songs that were one of the driving forces behind Kesäillan valssi appear to have been moved to the side as well in Onnelliset. Now a lot of the melodies are performed by Delia in her concerts which may alienate some viewers because her high-pitched soprano voice may feel too classical to fit in with lighter music. Eeva-Kaarina Volanen gets to sing very little and I was hoping Wager would take the stage more often too. Their best moment is probably their duet of the titular "Onnelliset" which naturally sounds very pretty. However, I must repeat my complaint about Volanen's acting; she still comes across as too joyous and carefree in her role, as if Annina never quite grasps the whole situation. The little girl playing her son Erkki is also totally annoying. Nevertheless, Leif Wager (now with a funny little moustache) and the real-life opera star Maaria Eira are enjoyable to see throughout.

Even though the realistic themes of marital issues, jealousy and guilt are basically a welcomed addition to the "franchise", I do not think they are handled in a very gripping way here after all. The very ending can be called a little lackluster and too easy as well. Still, Merikanto's music, some of the locations and Delia's singing montages are very nice, so Onnelliset is worth seeing if you liked Kesäillan valssi. As a standalone drama it is not among the cream of the crop of Finnish classic cinema though.