A white-knuckled form of courage and unimaginable determination in the face of overwhelming odds. This is a general definition of the word ‘sisu’, a Finnish term that has no direct English translation. It is NOT the name of the gold prospector played by Jorma Tommila who takes out a whole company of Nazis in the movie Sisu, an internationally produced action-western by Finnish director Jalmari Helander -though it does suit him. He is a highly skilled and tenacious veteran of the Winter War of 1939, who has struck gold in the Lapland wilderness and will do whatever it takes to keep the retreating Nazis from taking it from him. His name is Aatami Korpi, nicknamed ‘Koschei’ -The Immortal- by the Russians, and he has already been compared by critics and in the marketing to John Wick. But there is something more of an 80s action hero bent to this guy -like Schwarzeneggar’s character in Predator, or especially John Rambo, First Blood being a pretty clear influence on the plot and structure of Sisu. Korpi is a man pushed to breaking point, and while it doesn’t take much to get him there, it is an offensive enough action to warrant retaliation -if fascism itself wasn’t enough.
Sisu is composed of some very curious amalgamations of cultures -it has British opening narration, it’s cast of German characters speak English, while they themselves are played by mostly British and Scandinavian actors, and it is designed by it’s scale and clichés for the American market. Yet it is proudly a showcase of the Finns, with an almost entirely Finnish production crew and a hero played by one of the country’s most prominent actors. It’s privileged to come with fortuitous timing too, this movie about a Finn fighting Nazis, just as Finland has joined NATO in what seems to be a naked statement of opposition to the authoritarianism of neighbouring Russia. As such, a lot of people have recently renewed interest in that country and culture. Something Helander is only too eager to satiate.
A lot of us were never taught the history of the Second World War in Scandinavia, or even that the Nazis had a presence there at all. This movie right away gives us a small history of the Lapland War where the Finns signed an armistice with Russia requiring them to force the Germans out of their territory (it conspicuously glosses over how until this point Finland had been a strategic ally of Nazi Germany in fighting the Soviets). The movie primarily concerns one German company in 1944 in the process of withdrawing, taking with them relics and captive women while scorching the earth as they go. Even in retreat, they are monstrously abusing the land, and it is only Commander Helldorf (Aksel Hennie) seeing Korpi’s pounds of gold nuggets as a valuable life-link in lieu of the coming defeat of the Nazis (and of course something that he as a Nazi feels entitled to) that allows the carnage to escalate to extreme degrees.
And there is a certain fun brutishness to the violence against these fascists that accounts for the John Wick comparison –this and the fact that its protagonist is one of so few words that he doesn’t speak at all until predictably the final beat of the movie (and goddamn is it earned!). It’s very pulsating, creative stuff -never as impeccably controlled as something like Wick- but sharp and broad, with Nazis being blown up by their own minefield, blood and limbs scattering everywhere, and an arrogant captor being crushed by a truck mere minutes after laughing off the inevitability of his fate. But the real power comes from just how unexpectedly hardcore Korpi is. One sequence sees him, doused in gasoline to hide his scent from dogs, set himself on fire then jump in a lake where he kills every soldier who goes in after him underwater, breathing air from their slit throats. Elsewhere in the movie, in true Rambo fashion, he keeps himself alive on a noose by impaling his leg on a bit of protruding steel for balance, and he enters a plane mid-flight from the outside, hanging on by just an axe. Through it all, Tommila plays it with complete focus and a grizzled intensity; a gruelling role that even factoring in the participation of stunt people, demands a lot from the sixty-three-year-old actor, who is required to hang onto the underside of a moving vehicle and pull himself out of a pool of mud among other things. He rises to the challenge with a grit matching his character, living up to the legends others spread about him, and conveying the sense of pent-up frustration at boiling point really acutely.
The “one-man army” cliché has often been spouted in these man-against-the-world action movies, but rarely has it felt more appropriate than here where Helander makes a point early on to dwarf Korpi in relation to the Nazi convoy, that imposing behemoth of tanks and heavy weapons –only to subsequently show the swift and intuitive ways he dwindles this adversary down (admittedly with a little help later on, though still the pre-eminent force of brunt). Helander and Tommila make the effort to ground Korpi in lieu of this, with graphic focus on the injuries he sustains and the toll that the fight takes, making his sisu all the more apparent and remarkable. Helander indulges to a certain degree in the movie’s rawness, but he does so with a thrill for the craft of his extravagance that is vaguely reminiscent of George Miller or even Sam Peckinpah. And it’s never not fun -especially in the final convoy sequence that plays in the material sandbox of Mad Max: Fury Road from vehicular shootouts to thrilling car stunts to the resilience of a group of captive women. From this point through the climax, the momentum and scale of ridiculousness does not let up, but always it is characterized with creativity and an intense drive that is hard not be thrilled by. And the Nazi body count is pretty irresistible too.
Like it’s genre predecessors of the 80s, Sisu is not a terribly complex movie. Its characters are thin and its script mediocre -it probably won’t particularly leave a lasting impression beyond the set-pieces. But for the moment, it is a captivating and distinct adrenaline-powered action flick that in more ways than one rises to the moment of Finnish recognition. A cool movie that in whatever ways it can embodies the specific attributes of its title with gusto.
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