Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

GazerRise Fantastic!

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

the_wolf_imdb I do not want to go into details described in other reviews. Yes, this movie is amazing by the fact the main protagonists cannot speak to each other because of totally different languages.But there is one scene that left me stunned: The "Wolf's call" scene, where Kukushka uses very strange and very chilling ritual to call back the dying one from "the otherworld" back to the life. It is absolutely stunning, I had to watch this one particular scene over and over again. It is absolutely stunning introduction to the north European mythology.Great, great movie!

vino-katse I did like the idea of bringing people of three different tongues together, and the comedy that followed. Once everyone was safely inside the kota (the Saami tent) the movie was quite enjoyable.Unfortunately, before that it was quite tedious. The story of the chained sniper simply wasn't believable at all, rather ridiculous instead, and while the friendly fire incident on the Russian side could have happened, together the two were a bit too much.Also, I found Haapasalo's lines about war clumsy, preachy and stiff. He was talking as if reading from a book: while people do often write in a formal manner here in Finland, very few actually talk like that. Those who do are usually considered great bores. Since I don't speak Russian or Saami, I can't tell whether the other characters suffered from the same problem.Visually the film was excellent in places (especially with landscapes), and the story had potential, but could use quite a bit of improvement in the first third of the script.

Ivan Hoe If you get past the slow-paced first 15 minutes, a very funny movie awaits you. It is a very enjoyable watch, not too philosophical or ranting about how war is evil like other movies do. This is pure situation comedy, mistaken identity, hilarious scenes and situations, with only a small moral at the end which does not spoil your enjoyment.Also, at the beginning, Veikko tries to free himself very much like MacGyver, which I find both interesting and amusing. The Russian guy, Ivan, look a bit like Gary Oldman and the few visual effects with airplanes are really very good. 8/10

ThurstonHunger A parable as told in three simultaneous soliloquies? Anti-war mini drama that succeeds in what must be used to combat such aggression, forcing the enemy to see each other as actual people. Well at least as archetypes.Comedy is introduced via the fact that the three leads share no tongue, and in fact, oft times the exact wrong message is misunderstood amongst them. Again, this amplifies the mistakes that masters of war can make. In more typical comedies, we get the wink in a scene before the scene, i.e. we know a dog is already dead before something peculiar happens...but in this the humor is left to the subtitles, unless you've got polyglot potential.Still the film by and large worked even for this ugly American, the strangeness of the languages and the scenario (I knew vaguely of Laplander life, and had no idea how they would be affected by WWII). In some ways, this film is really quite simple and had Hollywood made it, I'm not sure if I would grade it as favorably to be honest.For example, the Prometheus reference was enough without having Veiko actually utter it. Also how would one accept the near-death journey across the Finnish finish line. And in the US, would we have been as charmed by Renee Zellweger in the female lead? Hopefully we'll never know, this film is perfectly enjoyable as it is. The story/locale is not our nest, and we should respect that.I found the two male leads quite well-spoken on the extra portion of the DVD, as befits their roles. We are led to believe that these two warriors are really more sensitive literal souls, a reader and a poet. I did like the former's attempt to use book titles, "War and Peace", "The Idiot" in his fruitless attempts to communicate to "Ivan." On the extras, the female lead seemed miles away from her "salt of the earth" (ironically without any salt) character in the film. Spoiler coming...again I think this film is worth watching. Stop reading here if you have not yet, please.So the ending, I guess is needed to really play up the parable in this...we are all brothers, or all our children are brothers. Interesting that the film was made by a Russian director, and the Russian character in the film is the more misguided missile. Of course, hinging his hatred upon the Germans and the SS band does make for a more complicated film, but the tale here really is quite simple.Yet not so simply heeded...sadly.7/10