World War II film Sisu is a poignant critique of oppressive regimes
Harry Khachatrian
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It was in September 1944, in the waning months of World War II, that Finland signed an armistice, expunging German Nazi forces from its territory. Amid the scorched-earth retreat of the Germans, and the devastation it wrought on Finnish towns and villages, Finnish filmmaker Jalmari Helander situates his latest film, Sisu.
Melding its World War II narrative into the style of a classic Western, Sisu revolves around Aatami (Jorma Tommila), a hardened ex-commando of the Finnish army who lost his family to the Soviets.
RENFIELD: A DISSONANT SYMPHONY OF HORROR AND COMEDY
Aesthetically a pastiche of Quentin Tarantino, the film is divided into chapters, each one introduced in bold, vivid font. It is prefaced with the definition of its title, Sisu, which is a Finnish concept without a direct English translation; it encapsulates a cultural ethos of extraordinary determination, resilience, and grit in the face of adversity. With this, the film sets a brooding tone for what is about to unfold.
Seeking solace from the war, Aatami has retreated into the Finnish wilderness, where he scours the soil for gold deposits. The film wastes little time divulging superfluous lore about its main character. Instead, it offers fleeting vignettes into his past: his muscular frame, a testament of sinew and strength, is a canvas festooned with battle scars that evoke injuries that would have been fatal to lesser men.
It is while lugging his loot back to the nearest town that he crosses paths with a Nazi patrol squad that the film picks up in pace and ensconces itself firmly in the action subgenre of “you just messed with the wrong guy.”
Like titular roles in films such as John Wick or The Equalizer, Aatami comes across as a disheveled, innocuous drifter minding his own business. It isn’t until a Nazi officer accosts him and tries robbing him of his gold that Aatami, as the trope goes, reverts to his old ways of violence, unleashing a wave of gore-filled, satisfyingly brutal retribution.
In a highlight scene, Aatami faces off against the German platoon across a minefield. After seeing him survive one landmine and proceed to use another as a Frisbee to take out an incoming soldier, it dawns upon the Nazi troupe that they’re not dealing with some addled miner but rather a veritable Viking whom legend has christened a “one-man death squad.”
Though the film frequently fiddles with dark comedy, as the Nazis begin to tremble upon realizing that the landmines surrounding them are the least of their worries, Sisu shows its true colors as a war movie foremost.
Furthermore, as a World War II movie, Sisu refreshingly eschews the incessant oversimplification of painting the Soviets as liberators against the Nazis. The film astutely acknowledges the less-often-discussed reality of Stalin and Hitler’s pact to carve up Europe, presenting both regimes as equally despotic. This point is underscored in a memorable scene in which a fleeing Nazi SS officer is provided an escape plane armed with a Soviet bomb.
The film’s setting, among the arid and vast plains of Finland’s northern Lapland region, is as crucial as any character in Sisu. The cinematography is stunning, lending a layer of realism and contributing to the Western flavor of the film.
Sisu is unflinching in its criticism of both the Communist and Nazi regimes. It’s a subtle commentary cleverly delivered in an adrenaline-fueled action piece that keeps you engrossed until Aatami massacres every last Nazi. A minor quibble with the film is its English-speaking Germans with limp accents, though this is a minor drawback in an otherwise brilliantly crafted homage to Finnish resilience. Laced with humor, Sisu is a visually captivating Western-style film and a poignant critique of oppressive regimes.
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Harry Khachatrian (@Harry1T6) is a film critic for the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog and a computer engineer in Toronto, pursuing his MBA.