wow! (don’t bother to read, I’m getting oss again…)

Irish Finnish Society DVD Library

1. Kummeli Goldfever
There is a secret hidden treasure in Lappland, waiting for someone to collect it. Only Elmeri Hautamäki knows its location. Unfortunately Elmeri is in a mental hospital. He manages to persuade his nurse to help him to escape and to go with him to get the treasure. This is the beginning of a crazy deisel-sucking adventure spanning the length of Finland. Killingly funny comedy. 1h 30min. No subtitles.

2. The Winter War – The Soviet Invasion of Finland in 1939
The heroic story of an infantry regiment and soldier Martti Hakala. It is an unbelievably realistic description of a battle in Taipaleenjoki against overwhelming odds. These men never wanted to become heroes but they fought because that was their duty. Without asking for anything and grinding their teeth in the face of the odds they filled the gaps left behind by the loss of their fellow soldiers. A Classic Finnish Movie. 3h 11min. Subtitled

3. The Unknown Soldier
Summer 1941. A machine gun squad is forced to give away all it’s spare equipment at a garrison based in eastern Finland. This squad is then sent to the Russian border. Next morning, the soldiers are awakened by artillery fire – the war has begun. Finnish troops attack and advance rapidly. The troops are put under severe pressure and the inexperienced men receive a baptism of fire. Dying and merciless combat life is every day life to the men. With insufficient resources and poorly equipped they keep fighting against overwhelming odds. The list of heroic actions is endless, but so is the number of dead. 2h 49min. Subtitled.

4. Badding
Badding is a fictional movie based on a true story. In the film we see a very typical stereotype of a tragic and comic hero. This type is very popular among Finns. Badding was already a rock legend in his lifetime in Finland. The movie portrays very successfully his inner world and his escape to his home region. We see how out of touch he is with reality, how difficult and demanding he was to the people around him and how alcohol speeds his tragedy. Melancolic, but entertaining. 1h 38min. Subtitled.

5. Trench Road
Juoksuhaudantie is a story of Finnish reality as its best. The film is an interpretation of how expensive an obsession owning a house in a Helsinki housing estate may turn out to be and how closely onlookers can feel the loneliness of the main actor Matti in this sorrow. When tragedy is at its deepest, the comedy is also running fast. Touching drama and black comedy which work marvelously together. 1h 36min. Subtitled.

6. Vares
The beautiful and elegant sergeant Eeva Sunila catches and seduces the detective Jussi Vares in a military refresher course. Suddenly, Eeva appears in the breaking news of the republic and drives Vares out of his mind. Vares commences an outrageous sequence of crime in rainy Southern Finland. There are many persons trying to get their hands on the millions stolen from the Mafia. The lives of friends and relatives seem to be worth nothing. The best Finnish thriller ever. Fast moving. If you ever liked Pulp Fiction, you will love this! 1h 25min. Subtitled.

7. Flowers and Binding
The sausage factory is a temple of the heart and love. The village is idyllic. Mmidsummer is turning into autumn, and there are hysterically exhausting human destinies in the air. The circle is small, love is ferocious and life cristallised around the sausage factory conveyor belt. A pig’s destiny is a tough one. The film wraps the relationship problems in the intestine. Outragoeus comedy jokes around serious things and the actors can live with it until the end of the film. 1h 43min. Subtitled.

8. Me and Morrisson
A film about love, dependancy and self delusion. A very funny and touching story which describes tragically the confrontation of two people wanting to escape from reality. 1h 31min. Subtitled.

9. A Tramp’s Rose
A film about the destiny of Irwin Goodman. It’s a story about the time when land was taken out of cultivation and folks moved to suburbs from villages; when the Hymy gossip magazine was the major information source of the common people and the Keihas travel agency organized package tours to the Canary Islands for people from Harmala; when the Jukebox was therapy for vagabonds, and pubs were bases for life-beaten loiterers. This soul scenery was the life of Irwin Goodman. 1h 38min. Subtitled.

10. Blue Corner
This Finnish drama centres around wrestling circles and tells about a father and his two-year old son as well as a couple of other people at the verge of change. The circle of dreams is small, a quarter-sized community description of the wrestling world. It is a story of how incidents and whims shape the destinies of people more than their will and reason. 1h 36min. Subtitled.

I did not know that… :D

http://www.irfinsoc.com/dvd/dvde02.html