Comments on: Day3.tiff: Sauna (AJ Annila) Review

By: Cikeb

Cikeb — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 11:50:52 +0000

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.

By: Tiina

Tiina — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 15:06:54 +0000

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.

By: Cikeb

Cikeb — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 13:06:20 +0000

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.