Save articles for later
Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time.
SISU ★★★½
(MA) 91 minutes
We’re told there’s no precise English translation for the word “sisu”. It’s Finnish and describes a will so strong there’s no denying it. In Sisu, the embodiment of this state of mind is Aatami, an old gold prospector who may have English-speaking counterparts on the screen. If so, they’re likely to be found in a Tarantino movie. They’re characters who have a knack for making a lethal weapon out of anything that comes to hand and deploying it in a uniquely ingenious way.
Jorma Tommila plays Aatami, a Finnish gold prospector who takes on the Nazis, in the over-the-top Sisu.
Sisu’s creator, Finnish writer-director Jalmari Helander, first excited critical attention on the international festival circuit with a horror movie parody. Sunnily titled, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale put a hectically mordant spin on the concept of the Bad Santa.
Jorma Tommila, a Helander favourite, was its star and he crops up again here as Aatami, who has struck gold somewhere in the Lapland wilderness when the action begins. It’s 1944 and Finland is embroiled in the closing stages of the Lapland War against Germany, and it goes without saying that Aatami is going to encounter plenty of Nazis before he gets the chance to cash in his nuggets.
The dance of death which follows is choreographed with such clinical and inventive matter of factness that it’s inspired a YouTube montage of the film’s “best kill scenes”. Rather than being directed to avert your gaze from the effects of violence, you’re watching it magnified to the point of the cartoonish. It’s lavishly embellished with blood and gore. Talk about a guilty pleasure.
Logic says you ought to be snorting with derision at the sight of Aatami rising from the dead at regular intervals, his energy renewed with every battering. Yet there’s something so compelling about Tommila’s red-eyed glare and the stoic proficiency with which he sews up his own wounds, after excising oversize chunks of shrapnel, that I couldn’t do anything but cheer him on.
He doesn’t take on the whole of the invading army. His enemies are the survivors of a tank command bent on robbing him of his gold and taking off with it.
They’re a little late, however, in learning about his wartime past as the most ferocious commando in the Finnish forces – a man whose voracious appetite for vengeance has been inspired by the deaths of his wife and children.
It’s not merely a boys’ own adventure. The Nazis have captured a group of Finnish women and before the action is over, Aatami’s example has encouraged them to do a little damage of their own.
None of this bears thinking about. There’s no time for thought anyway. But it rockets along in a perversely entertaining way.
Sisu is released in cinemas on July 27.
Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.
Most Viewed in Culture
From our partners
Source: Read Full Article
