Il soldato sconosciuto

The movie is based on a brilliant and realistic book (Unknown soldier) about the "Continuation War" between Finland and Soviet Union from 1941 to 1944.

After the initial fast attack phase the war turns into sleepy trench warfare (1942-44), then (1944)the company has to retreat and finally stop the storming Red Army forces. There exists a wide spectrum of characters from cowards to heroes, from peasant rank-and-file soldiers to cocky officers. The scale in personalities and changing situations of war, which are credibly described, makes the movie a spectacle.

It helps a lot if one knows some of the underlying history, but the story is rather universal tale of the cruelty of war and the men who have to live and die for their country and different motives. The language with dialects is versatile, but in Finnish only. This old version (1955) is in my opinion better than the later one (1985).

This war classic starts with Jean Sibelius' Finlandia.It shows how all those brave men fight against Russians in the WWII and many of them get killed.Tuntematon Sotilas from 1955 is directed by Edvin Laine and it's based on Väinö Linna's novel.This movie is filled with great actors.Reino Tolvanen is the legendary Rokka.There are also Veikko Sinisalo, Åke Lindman, Pentti Siimes, Matti Ranin, Jussi Jurkka, Tauno Palo, Tapio Hämäläinen, Olavi Ahonen, Tarmo Manni, Mikko Niskanen and Veijo Pasanen just a few to mention.The 6th day of December is the Independence Day of Finland and they usually show this war classic on that day.This year Finland has been 84 years independent.It's a good thing that they show this every year because this is the best Finnish war movie ever.This shows how brutal the war is.There are wars going on all the time somewhere.Right now there's the war against terrorists in Afghanistan.People just won't learn to live in peace.I'm just glad that Russia and Finland are in peace with each other now.I think we all should love each other, not hate.But what can I do.This just is the world we're living in.But I recommend this Finnish war drama for everybody, no matter where you're from.It lasts for 181 minutes but it's not too much for this movie.

Being a swede myself and reading politi kasses interpretation of this movie as soviet propaganda makes me embarrassed. Of course it isn't! Probably he has never seen a soviet propaganda movie? Talking about propaganda I would say "Band of Brothers" contains more American propaganda than this movie contains soviet propaganda - even though Band of Brothers is a fantastic creation. I always find it refreshing to see war movies from other countries than USA. Often the consequences and moral issues of war are more much more interesting. Almost everyone in Europe knows somebody who fought in the war or suffered the consequences. Europeans saw their continent blow into pieces. Thats why we love anti-heroic movies like Das Boot and Stalingrad - and this one. By the way, how often do you see Finnish soldiers in movies? 10 out of 10.

The Unknown Soldier is a cinematic epic as well as a Finnish film classic. Though I have never read the original novel its easy to see why many Finns find it so compelling. Also, generally as a film it is an extremely strong example of what Finnish cinema is capable of.

The movie is a grade-A example of a good war-film, that doesn't rely solely on gruesome imagery or battle footage, but is interesting because of its strong characterization. The characters in deed are the most memorable part of the movie, despite being somewhat over-blown. The over-all tone also varies nicely, between light-hearted humour as well as extremely bleak imagery.

In all the film has only two major weaknesses. First the slightly dragging narrative responsible for the over-all length of the film as well as occasional lack of authenticity. But even with these weaknesses the film delivers a powerful message.

There is no better war-film ever made in history. This ruthless Saga of Finland struggling against former Super Power of the world is just heavy true story. You can almost feel the fear in finnish soldiers who are doing all they can to stop russians march. Movie is fullfilled with black humor what is so common even todays finns behaviour, when they find themselves in though position. I watch this movie every year, cause I like it so much, and I´m not even a patriot or like so much about war movies in general. I recommend this movie to all. "Tuntematon sotilas" (The Unknown Soldier) is a made from the book with same name on it and I think book is even better, but of course you can´t ever compete with a movie against book (Sorry about my poor english).