Though he won’t be in Karlovy Vary, Finnish filmmaker Jalmari Helander is still a keenly felt presence in the selection of his third feature film, Sisu, in the Midnight section. A huge hit on the festival circuit starting with its Toronto premiere last September, the film has proven so popular in its native Finland, where it opened on January 27, that at the time of writing it still boasts three screenings a day in the Helsinki region alone. And American distributor Lionsgate also believed in its potential, releasing it in 1,006 theaters on opening weekend in April. It ultimately grossed over $7 million in the U.S., a respectable number for a Nordic film with no recognizable stars in the cast (although Norwegian actor Aksel Hennie, who plays the German commander, has popped up in several Hollywood productions).
The film’s appeal lies in a very simple yet brutal story: Nazis are on their way to Norway via Lapland, until during their march they cross paths with a lone, not particularly talkative, Finn. It turns out he’s a former soldier who, much like that other Lionsgate icon John Wick, has a reputation for being able to kill anyone who gets in his way, by any means necessary. And while he may be a man of few words, his fists and pickaxe do the talking for him. He’s the literal embodiment of the word sisu, a Finnish idiom that is not easy to translate (although the opening title card does try to provide a definition). “That’s why I made the movie”, Helander quipped back in September, when the Midnight Madness crowd in Toronto got to witness the unveiling of the main character Aatami Korppi and his Nazi killing spree.
The role of Korppi was written specifically for actor Jorma Tommila, Helander’s frequent collaborator and brother-in-law. They first worked together on the Rare Exports film series, consisting of two shorts and one feature, a gorily funny anti-consumerist satire rooted in the Finnish Santa Claus tradition. Instead of the nice old man made famous by Coca-Cola adverts, he’s a goat-faced demon (his Finnish name, Joulupukki, literally translates as “Christmas Goat”) who enjoys eating children. The film was also a coming-of-age story, with Onni Tommila (Jorma’s son and the director’s nephew) playing the young protagonist. He also starred in Helander’s second feature Big Game, where he plays a young hunter tasked with protecting the President of the United States (Samuel L. Jackson) after Air Force One gets hijacked in Finnish airspace (the actual filming took place in Germany).
And then, partly motivated by the pandemic, the filmmaker went back home and came up with something smaller and grittier, but still suitably grand in terms of spectacle. And yes, there has already been talk of a sequel, but Helander is in no hurry for now. He’s working on a science fiction project, which promises to be yet another internationally appealing, but still profoundly Finnish, endeavor.
