Miekkailija

Based on a true story, this Estonian film (directed by a Finn) the film is set on 1952, when that country was under Soviet occupation. A man named Endel (Mart Avandi) arrives to a small Estonian town from Leningrad. He is obviously on the run from Soviet authorities, though we never get to know much of the back story. He presents himself to a school asking for a teaching job. He is given the physical education class, only problem is the school has no sporting equipment for the children. One day he finds in a drawer at the school a fencing sword and he starts playing with it. A girl sees him and asks him to train her in fencing. At first he refuses, but eventually announces in the school board there will be a fencing class on Saturday. To his surprise, a lot of students appear on Saturday, wanting to learn fencing. Despite his lack of charisma, the fencing classes are successful, even though they are disliked by the school director who see the sport as a remnant of a feudal past, but is outvoted by the school's parents. Eventually, Endel is so successful in training the children that he is invited to a tournament in Leningrad. The problem is that going there could blow his cover.

This is not a perfect film, it starts well, but it loses momentum in the second part. The Russians and their collaborators in Estonia (like the school director) are caricatures. And in parts of the movie, the story seems undeveloped, as when Endel starts a relationship with a woman teacher in the school.

There is a cameo as a politically persecuted grandfather of one of the boys in the school of Lembit Ufsak, who starred in the more interesting Oscar nominated Estonian film Tangerines.

When I first heard about this film, I was rather apprehensive about its portrayal of fencing. Too often such films fall prey to unrealistic swordplay, or to relegating the fencing to some metaphors and maybe a lunge every now and then.

Not so with this movie. Not only are the lessons portrayed in a realistic way, the tournament itself had the feel of an actual tournament and the actions executed looked like they were supposed to. I did notice the modern scoring system was used, but I assume this is so as not to confuse the viewer; the old system kept track of hits scored against a fencer, and as such the numbers would be reversed.

History-wise, it gave a good picture of the time period and the perils in which Soviet citizens found themselves.

In my eyes, the only 'weak point' would be that the underdog story is a rather standard one, but I honestly didn't feel that it detracted from the movie at all.

Beautifully shot, a script where not a word is wasted and acting that conveys the harshness and guarded nature of adults living under an authoritarian regime.

An Estonian fencer takes a job teaching physical education at an out-of-the-way school in the 1950's. Despite the lack of resources, and a principal who thinks there is more to this man than he is letting on, he decides to set up a fencing club for the children which draws the kind of attention from the authorities he was trying to avoid.

I came across this gem by accident. A friend gave me several movies and I only just found this one 8 months later. I found this movie extremely touching. The pace was slow but I found that this accentuated the underlying emotions and I was captivated from start to finish. I have certainly seen other movies with this basic plot but this movie stood out because the performances were deep and poignant. I like many Hollywood movies but this was noticeably different: At once simpler -- with less "action" and less dialogue and less "spelling everything out" and maybe at the same time more complex because of what was portrayed in a look or a silence. Glad I watched this.

"The Fencer" is a typical sports and underdog film: which make you root for the underdog. It's slightly different from many others in that there is some history for solid context: however, that also has been done so far, and the director does not experiment much with the pace of the film. Some of the landscapes are beautiful, and in my opinion they afforded the director to be much slower and absorbed in the atmosphere, like the German film "Barbara" did, but that does not happen. However, the film is a lovely watch and touches your heart because of the fine cast: a special mention should be made here for the boy (Joonas Koff) playing Jaan, who has given the most impressive performance of the film.