Toronto - 9AM in the morning and I was to watch a “horror” film… Having watched it I can safely declare that this is no such thing. Sauna is a very moody film to be sure, but if your expectations were on par with the Ring or Grudge, the most you are likely to get is the view of a dead girl’s feet. Link after the picture to see trailer.
“The 25 year war between Finland and Russia is over…” so said the subtitle, and we’re thrown right into the middle of a border charting expedition. Quickly the background is flushed out: Erik and Knut Spores are two brothers, one an experienced veteran of warfare and the other fresh-meat on the market. (And I never figured out which country they worked for… Sweden or Finland? Or were they ever the same?) After a quick encounter with a lone farming family on their way to meeting their Russian counterparts, the brothers settled into business. But their past caught up with them. The farm girl who Knut had abandoned, locked in the cellar, came back to haunt him, looking very similar to the one in the Japanese Ringu, I might add. The expedition lost their way and hit a bizarre village with a sauna and never came out of it with their lives. The sauna was a very weird construction and completely out of phase with the middle ages setting of the movie. It’s almost minimalist - a white cubic thing with an entrance that’s also the exit. As the team spent time to decide who will take possession of the village, they slowly found out that the whole thing is just “evil”. Everything in it is wrong and everyone gets corrupted - and repenting didn’t make things better.
I found the whole movie disconnected. Sure, small individual elements were cool. The faceless Russian near the very end was interesting, as was the plant collection, etc. I guess the sauna that drew people in, promising but not delivering forgiveness is the whole point. Finns, incidentally, believes the washing away of sins/memories. AJ even mentioned in the Q&A, that the whole theme is that a boundary exist beyond which there is no salvation. This sauna does NOT wash away your sin - it reminds you and makes you suffer for it. So in that light the movie, er, did a good job at being depressing and drab. It was certainly not a coherent, story-driven horror film. But neither was it an art-piece that’s built one event to the other, to make you think hard. That’s because the ending was given up miles before at the beginning of the film, and by the time Erik counted 73 you know that his sins won’t be forgiven. So making him see the destruction of the only glimmer of hope he had (that he made a difference and saved some village girl) was only driving the nails deeper in the coffin, and being a bit too dramatic.
3/5 to AJ. And I think the other name - Filth, is way more fitting for what the movie was portraying.
22 Oct 08 6:06 am
The subtitle was wrong if it said that it was the war between “Finland and Russia” that was over. The war was fought between Sweden and Russia, as Finland was a part of Sweden back then. (Actually “Finland” in the 16th century was just a small province within todays Finland. The same area is called Finland Proper today.) Nowadays people quite often talk about Sweden-Finland, even though this is not partcularly correct historically speaking. It is the view of today placed on yesterday. But the beginning text stated (if I remember correctly) that “the 25 year war between Sweden-Finland and Russia is over”. Although in the film itself they never mention Finland, just Sweden and the Swedish king who Erik and Knut ultimately work for. The Finnish langauge is mentioned I think and used of course. “Finland” didn’t exist until 1809, when Russia finally conquered Swedens eastern part and made it a semi-independent Grand Duchy.
Enough history-lessons. I thought it felt a bit disconnected too. There were lots of interesting details that never got around to being explained or developed. This happens in a lot of Japanease movies as well I’ve noticed, and the director AJ Annila does take a lot of inspiration from there. So it might even be on purpose. Culture crash?
It certainly is not a horror pic, but it is pretty creepy despite all its faults. As a pure audiovisual experience it is quite excellent.
23 Oct 08 8:06 am
History lesson from Finland.
Yes, we Finns were part of the sweden for over 6 hundred years, allthough Finland has been overruled by both swedish and russians we have always kept our own culture and language. When sweden were our overruler the Finns fought wars of swedish kings, our soldiers were called as hakkapeliitta. When sweden “sold” us to Russians in 1809 in Napoleanic wartime era, we stayed still speaking our language and living by our culture as we have for thousands of years.
You can find us in history wiht many names, Suomi is our own name for our contry and it means land in swamp, need I mention that we have loads of that kind of land ?
This movie itself is a journey into all things went wrong in a man’s mind. Sadly we can be cruel as humans. Sauna is meant to bring warmth and happiness (allmost every Finn has one in their home) but in this all has went wrong and even sauna has turned bad. So this means endless loss of hope.
25 Oct 08 4:50 am
Please don’t take this the wrong way Tiina, but your view of Finnish history in the Swedish realm, even though it is generally speaking correct, is very much colored by the last 200 years of Finnish history. Nationalism didn’t come along until the early 19th century. Things like Hakkapeliitat probably weren’t seen as that important by ordinary people before that century. They’ve been glorified later to make history more interesting from our (Finnish) perspective.
But this is probably not the right place to discuss this.