Skip to main content

The Manic Hardiness of the Sisu Sequel

Perhaps more action movies should function also as history lessons the way that Sisu does -at least for non-Finnish audiences largely unfamiliar with Finland and its consecutive bad relationships with Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. A country that has been victimized by multiple more powerful states through the ages the way that Finland has deserves a character like Aatami Korpi to enact a bit of cathartic vengeance on behalf of his people. Certainly it feels more righteous than something like Rambo II applying the same dynamic to America and Vietnam, though Korpi has clearly taken some influence from Rambo as a character. Yet he is far more of a virtually supernatural unkillable beast than Stallone could have turned his wronged war vet into.
Sisu: Road to Revenge is just as hardcore as the first film if not quite as novel. It’s fitting that even just a real-time lapse in the movie’s setting renders the circumstance for its lead character (who again is NOT called ‘Sisu’) very different -while also somewhat the same. In the wake of the Second World War, Finland almost immediately exchanged one neighbouring oppressor for another, and writer-director Jalmari Helander does well to craft a more personal mission for his hero without tarnishing his silent formidable gravitas and mystique.
Like the first movie, this Sisu sequel opens with narration explaining the context of post-war Finland and how the Karelia territory -historically a part of Finland- was ceded to Soviet Russia, forcing the expulsion of many Finns from their homeland to the right side of their new border. Among these is ex-commando Aatami Korpi, played once again by Jorma Tommila, who makes the bold illegal journey back across the border to dismantle his family home piece by piece to transport it and rebuild it in Finland. In response, the KGB  sends after him the ruthless soldier Igor Draganov (Stephen Lang), the man who murdered Korpi’s family, to stop and kill him however he can.
Once again, Korpi is silent through his entire screen-time, and though bestowed with a tragic backstory, retains his enigmatic presence and hardened persona -occasionally breaking a tad for moments of comic stress, which several beats in the movie give licence for. Tommila’s discipline is only matched by his energetic hardiness for a man of his age -he is in his late sixties- impressive, given a lot of the stunts are performed by him personally. And he does well at embodying that titular sentiment -Sisu again being a distinctly Finnish concept of bravery, resilience, and endurance- as he is once more positioned as a kind of cultural folk hero and embodiment of the Finnish character broadly in the face of this level of aggression -which is incredibly intense.
The depiction of the Russians in this movie is reminiscent of that of the British in Indian movies with similar themes of mythologizing cultural fortitude like RRR. They aren’t just evil, but opportunistic and psychotic -especially those commanders like Draganov and his immediate superior played by Richard Brake. And to capture Korpi, Draganov sends everything at him he can think of -in spite of the violent intensity of Korpi’s responses. A truck of some agents is small potatoes next to multiple fighter planes chasing down his own truck on the road. What’s more remarkable though is his ability to consistently beat them. Helander is quite creative in his staging of the action beats, going as big as he can in how Korpi can match these odds. His downing of a plane from his little truck is a particularly inspired bit of ridiculousness, his inventive means of salvaging his wood when losing his truck and then commandeering of a tank likewise. And these have nothing on his actions through the climax set on a train, where things almost echo a touch of Nikhil Nagesh Bhat’s Kill, but with a sense of self-aware morbid humour. There is a Silence of the Lambs kind of play in there and a couple sequences that feel like a video game obstacle course that Korpi must maneuver without waking a carriage full of sleeping soldiers. And then there is the truly unhinged Chekhov’s gun of the last act involving a ballistic missile. It’s all pretty fun and amusing, the hyper-reality of this world conveyed convincingly to their tenor; and though Korpi is a juggernaut he’s never rendered totally untouchable in a boring way.
Lang, a veteran of B-movie villain roles, fits the bill well as his nemesis, cruel and calculating and with a decently cartoonish Russian accent. Unlike the Nazis of the first film, he has the semblance of an arc of his own, in the manner of his being used by the Soviet military apparatus -having been imprisoned himself before this assignment- and invested in a little revenge of his own. Otherwise there are no characters who aren't simple obstacles for Korpi to knock down, the film unconcerned with expanding the premise beyond its strict gut purposes.
Like its predecessor, there is a potent gnarly quality to the violence and Korpi's endurance. As is expected -and the movie does follow an incredibly routine story structure- Korpi is at one point captured and the torture he undergoes, though a lot of it is implied, is quite brutal, as he comes into the last act sweat-caked and dripping in blood. It's a feature of his raw toughness and primal masculinity, and is effective for its punchiness as Helander uses it -in swift bursts rather than drawn-out beats. But in general, the movie's excesses are obligated to go beyond what the first film did, and there is a little bit of shallowness in that as a priority for the movie, which doesn't feel so spontaneous as a result.
Sisu: Road to Revenge delivers partly on that Mad Max-sounding subtitle choice, though it is more brutish in aesthetic in keeping with its classic Scandinavian character (Korpi could be interpreted as a latter-day Viking). Aspects of it are a touch repetitive from the first, it's not so original or surprising. But the chaotic action is still engaging and proudly overzealous, with a few beats of very fun madness -especially through the climax. ‘Sisu’ still accurately describes this character and his outrageous adventures of vivid revenge and patriotism as Finland's great superhero.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Strange History of the American Spoof Movie

Parody movies have been around for a lot longer than we tend to think of them. Even from the earliest days of Hollywood there were movies meant to satirize a particular subject or genre. In the silent era, Buster Keaton was responsible for a few. And in the early sound era, almost as soon as the monster pictures took off did you see comic versions of them -Abbott and Costello hosting a few. But parody movies tended to be subtle for most of cinema history, or parody came in conjunction with another goal of the comedy. It really wasn’t until the 1980s and 90s that it took off and became popularly understood. And there is perhaps a line to be drawn to the counterculture comedy explosion that began in the 1970s through avenues like  Saturday Night Live , which frequently parodied from even its earliest years popular movies and cultural properties of the time. But that is still a way’s back. To my generation though, ‘parody movie’ is perhaps a less known term than the more blunt ‘s...
Post a Comment
Read more

Notes on the Title Cards of The Lord of the Rings

It might be sacrilege for one who both considers The Lord of the Rings  trilogy to be one of the greatest triumphs of cinema and has been an avid lover of the films since adolescence, to declare that the original theatrical cuts of the films are better than the much beloved extended editions. Easily it’s my most controversial opinion regarding these movies. Don’t get me wrong, I do like the extended editions quite a lot, especially as someone who just enjoys spending time in that universe. They flesh it out more, add extra flavour, and in increasing the length by about an hour really emphasize the epic quality of these films. But I find that the original cuts are generally more cleanly paced, more seamlessly edited, and much more accessible to audiences. All the stuff there is to love about The Lord of the Rings  is there in the original versions, the plethora of new and extended scenes merely add to that for fans. And of those, they fall into three camps for me: 1....
1 comment
Read more

Back to the Feature: New York, New York (1977)

New York, New York  is a two hour forty minute musical movie largely about a toxic relationship and I understand why it was Martin Scorsese’s first big flop. Some have blamed its poor reception on the kind of movie it was, of a style and tone Scorsese wasn’t known for, but I find that hard to believe. Even after only five films, he’d proven himself an extremely versatile director, and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore  found an audience. Sure this jazz musical love letter to New York City was following up Taxi Driver and its’ far more cynical take on the city, but then it’s also ‘from the director of Taxi Driver ’ which itself was a big hit. Was it a matter of public appetite for musicals, or mere word of mouth and early critical reception that dissuaded viewers? Irrespective of that, I was stunned to discover this movie was the origin of the titular song, which I’d assumed was much older (it’s definitely got the sound of something that might have come out of the Jazz sce...
Post a Comment
Read more