Reviews
Aleksis Kiven elämä (2001)
Good for a Finnish movie
ALEKSIS KIVEN ELÄMÄ
The Life of Aleksis Kivi
For to make a small introduction to the person, Aleksis Kivi was the first Finnish novel writer who lived 1834-1872. Finland was given from Sweden to Russia in 1809 and at the time of Kivi the quarrel about official use of the Finnish language was at its height.
The director of the film, Jari Halonen was present at the pre-premiere where I saw the film. He emphasized that he had been working for seven years on this film and the leading role actor Marko Tiusanen for one year before the filming to get familiar with his character. This is visible in the good planning of the scenes and the plausibility of the Kivi's character.
If you want to get general view about the plot of the film, please visit its official homepage, the following is mainly my comments about the movie given with some background that is necessary for people outside of Finland for to understand the themes of the movie.
SPOILER WARNING!
In the beginning of the film gives a very cruel picture about the situation of Finnish (spoken by peasants) compared to Swedish (mostly spoken among the educated and wealthy townspeople). Today although only some 7% of the Finnish citizens have Swedish as their native language it has got the position as the second official language in the country. All Finnish people are not so satisfied with this and it seems that one of the largest themes in the movie is the rising of Finnish identity and the Finnish language with the cost of Swedish.
Not even in a meeting of the Club of Finnish Culture poetry in Finnish is tolerated. The viewer has to wonder, was the position of Finnish really so depressing?
Hard to know and understand. As a colony of Sweden the Finns had it a lot harder than the mother country and the division between the cultures was still clear. There still are some small towns where speaking Finnish to the shopkeepers gives you much worse service. (Like speaking English in France, you know? ;-)) On the other hand, today this is common if you talk Swedish in especially the Eastern Finland.
Aleksis's home is presented as dull countryman cottage where no-one else was interested in academics. It is hard to believe that anyone from such conditions would ever grow into a great writer. As a matter of fact the movie gives some hints supporting the theory that Aleksis really was a bastard of some noble, Aleksis is much longer and does not look so much like his brothers. He gives a picture of an upright Finn among the twisted Swedish speaking upper class. At some points Aleksis's careful literary language feels a bit clumsy.
It is a fact that Kivi really won old Runeberg in the competition for the state award with his play Nummisuutarit . This is presented in the movie as a great suprise for the academicians and surely was too. At the latest in that point the university of Helsinki had to acknowledge him as a great author.
The landscape in the film is beautiful. Finland still is the land of forests and beautiful places. In many scenes one can see that this movie was not made with a great budget, the scenes are somewhat simple. This does not matter so much however because one can understand that at those times circumstances everywhere were quite dull. However the scenery and clothing are believable. Anyway the whole film is much drama like, the director has done much more drama than anything else.
Kivi wrote four time his novel Seven brothers before he gave it to be published. He put much of himself in the book and the crushing critics drives his into madness like it is depicted in the film. Some hints of this has already been given to the viewer when Kivi talks with his dead father. Only after some thirty years after his death people started to understand the value of Seven brothers.
In the beginning the theme of the movie seems to be the social class division by the language, but towards the end of the film Aleksis's person and his diligence rise to the main subject. They wanted to get literature in Finnish and Kivi created the Finnish literature. All they did to thank him was to subdue him with no defenders in critics and to put the broken man into a mental hospital.
The end of the film is a cliche that I did not like. Kivi's poem about the squirrel is peaceful and appeals to the viewer with its fresh and virtuosic use of vocabulary and the silence as effect succeeds. Playing the Finlandia hymn does not fit into the picture, it is exaggerated. To the end of Tuntematon Sotilas Sibelius's Finlandia is perfect but the movie would be simplier but more fitting with just the red text "Aleksis Kiven Elämä" at the end.
After all, nobody should take the film too seriously without seeing the humor behind the persons. It is not ment in that way. For example Runeberg, Snellman and Cygnaeus can not really be presented as such clowns genuinely. When the Seven brothers was first published one of the most repeated point was that "it can not have been true" as the reason why the book couln't be accepted. Well, I think that this movie tries to present the real happenings of Kivi's life in a humoristic way and succeeds quite well in that.
Nice / weird scenes:
- at the point where Aleksis's friend comes near the end to speak with Cygnaeus , he is in some baths place which does not seem Finnish at all. The clothing of people there remains of some Roman senators and it seems a bit messy what the director wants to say with this.
- the professor of Finnish language wants the dialect of Savo to be the culturic language. Luckily Aleksis chooses not to follow his advice.
-Jouko Turkka acts as the mental hospital director. Mental hospital is just the right place for him, don't you agree?
Aleksis Kiven Elämä continues the last few years serie of Finnish identity concentrating movies as Badding, Rentun Ruusu, Rukajärven tie and the coming Mannerheim . Maybe this is an appropriate time for this kind of movies since our country lives is loosing its former identity with the Nokia phenomena, European Union and the Euro.
I'll give 8 out of 10 to this movie. It is a good movie taking into account that it is Finnish and has got good humor eventhough it can be at many places seen that it was not made with great money. I really doubt if any others than fanatic Finnish culture enthusiasts will be interested in it abroad.