Europe Endless - Scandinavia: The Man Without A Past (Dir Aki Kaurismäki 1h36m, 2002)
A familiar stop on our tour of Europe now, as we arrive in Finland: we have already considered its recent growth commercially and critically, with Compartment No. 6 (2021), the horror movie/coming of age tale, Hatching and the gloriously B-Movie violence of Sisu (both 2022). This is where Finnish cinema is; yet its history stretches back to before its independence, the first film being shown in the country a year after the medium's creation in 1896, the first film being made in Finland in 1904 ( Novelty from Helsinki: School youth at break ) and its first feature in 1907 ( The Moonshiners ( Salaviinanpolttajat )). Halted by the Russian government, Finland would return after independence from Soviet Russia to film-making in the 1920s, adopt sound in the 1930s, and whilst the films of the 1940s and 50s would be decidedly nationalistic and extol its nature and landscapes alongside shallow morality tales, it would also be a film industry dominat...
