Cinema of Finland

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Contents 1 Before Independence 2 The Silent Years 1920-30 3 The Coming of Sound 4 The Golden Age 1934-39

Before Independence

The Lumière company screened the first moving images at Helsinki in 1896, but it wasn't until 1904 that the first films were actually filmed in Finland. It is unkown who made the first film (called Novelty from Helsinki: School youth at break), but it was shown by American Bioscope in December. The first Finnish film company, Atelier Apollo, was founded in 1906 by engineer K. E. Ståhlberg. It produced mainly documentary shorts, but also the first Finnish feature film, The Moonshiners (1907). From the very beginning, Finnish film production was centered to the country's capital.

The Moonshiners was directed by Teuvo Puro, who was also in charge of directing the first full-length Finnish feature, Sylvi, based on a play by Minna Canth. The film was shot in 1911 with two other full-length literature adaptations, but it didn't premiere until 1913. The filmmakers didn't have enough money to send films to the nearest laboratory in Copenhagen at once, so the material remained undeveloped too long, and two out of three films were ruined.

The years following Sylvi saw the formation of the first active feature film company, Hjalmar V. Pohjanheimo's Lyyra-Filmi, which produced both short farces and "art films". There was also an attempt to create larger-scale film production by Erik Estlander, who build a studio with glass walls and roof in Helsinki in 1916. At the end of the same year the Russian officials forbid all filming activity in Finland, so nothing much was made anymore before the country's independence in 1917.

The Finnish film industry of the first two decades of 20th century was never even near of the creativity or the produtiveness of its scandinavic neighbours, Sweden and Denmark - one might even say that it there was barely no industry or production at all. In addition, most of the footage filmed before indepence is lost. Of feature films, only thirteen minutes of Sylvi still remains.

The Silent Years 1920-30

Suomi-Filmi

It wasn't until the 1920's before regular film production started, thanks to a successful company called Suomi-Filmi (founded under the name Suomen Filmikuvaamo in 1919) and its creative leader Erkki Karu. He also directed the most important films of the era and was the prime figure of Finnish cinema before his early death in 1935. His The Village Shoemakers (1923) is the essential silent masterpiece, a freshly told folk comedy after Aleksis Kivi's play with mildly experimental camerawork by German Kurt Jäger. Other notable films by Karu include: The Logroller's Bride (1923), with superb cinematography by Jäger and Oscar Lindelöf, and also the first Finnish film distributed widely abroad; When Father Has Toothache (1923), a short and surrealistic farce; and Our Boys (1929), a patriotisic forerunner of many military farces.

Audiences of the agricultural country were affected by Suomi-Filmi's rural subjects. Dealing with deeply national countryside stories remained as company's policy through the silent era. Occasionally there were some attempts to make more urban, or more "European" films like Karu's Summery Fairytale (1925), but the public stayed away.

Another important director at Suomi-Filmi was Puro, who made the company's first feature Olli's Years of Apprenticeship(1920) and one of the few Finnish horror films, Evil Spells (1927). An interesting oddity of the last two silent years was Carl von Haartman, a soldier and an adventurer, who had worked as an military advisor in Hollywood. Because of this he was considered capable of directing films. His two upper-class spy dramas, The Supreme Victory (1929) and Mirage (1930), were quite passable, but didn't attract the public.

Other companies

Suomi-Filmi dominated heavily the Finnish film production in the twenties: the company produced 23 out of 37 full-length feature films made between 1919 and 1930. Other companies (that appeared occasionally) seemed to vanish from Suomi-Filmi's and Erkki Karu's way after producing one or two films. The most important of these alternative production companies appeared during the latter half of the decade.

The German cinematographer Jäger left Suomi-Filmi, and formed his own company Komedia-Filmi. It linked with a global film trust (Ufanamet), which at the time had the most of the film distribution of Finland in its possession, thus being a great thread to Suomi-Filmi. Suomi-Filmi defended itself with national values, accusing Komedia-Filmi and Ufanamet for being foreign invaders. Luckily for Suomi-Filmi, both companies proved to be unsuccessful. Komedia-Filmi made only two films, of which the latter one, On the Highway of Life (1927, directed by Jäger and Ragnar Hartwall) is an interesting attempt to make some kind of a modern comedy.

The year 1929 saw the premiere of the first two films produced by a minor company Fennica and directed by Valentin Vaala, who was yet to come one of the greatest directors of the golden years of Finnish cinema. When he started making the first one of these (Dark Eyes) he was only 17-years old, and his leading actor Theodor Tugai (later Teuvo Tulio) 14-years old. This film and its instant remake The Gypsy Charmer were new kind, passionate dramas with clearly oriental influences. Unfortunately only the latter one has remained; the filmmakers destroyed the only negative of Dark Eyes by throwing it to the sea, because they thought the remake was far superior.

There were also enterprises to produce films outside the capital, but at least the films made in Viipuri and Oulu were too primitive to even premiere at Helsinki. No Tears at the Fair (1927) and The Man of Snowbound Forests (1928), two now vanished films produced in Tampere by Aquila-Suomi and directed by Uuno Eskola were better attempts – at least according to the contemporaries. Nothing permanent production was left in Tampere, but one of Aquila's producers, painter Kalle Kaarna, proved to be a gifted director on his own right. His first film With the Blade of a Sword (1928) was boldly advertised as a neutral story about the painful civil war of 1918, and his second film, A Song about the Heroism of Labour (1929) introduced (although quite convetionally) a new kind of proletarian hero to the public. Unfortunately these films have also vanished for good.

The Coming of Sound

The first experiments with sound were done by Lahyn-Filmi, a provincial company operating in Turku. The first full-length sound film with song and talk was Lahyn's Say It in Finnish (1931), directed by company's leader Yrjö Nyberg (later Norta). This lost film was more a collection of musical revue numbers than a feature.

Suomi-Filmi transformed its production from silent to sound films during the same year. The first Finnish film with soundtrack was company's Dressed Like Adam and a Bit Like Eve Too (1931), based on popular play by Agapetus. There was only music and some sound effects on the soundtrack, so company's first true sound film was Karu's talkie The Lumberjack's Bride (1931), another rural drama.

The Golden Age 1934-39

The studio system

In 1933 Karu was kicked out from Suomi-Filmi, his own company. He took his revenge by founding a new one called Suomen Filmiteollisuus, which started to use initials SF in its logo. This company managed far better than previous attemps to compete with Suomi-Filmi, and right after couple successful comedies directed by Karu it had grown as significant as its rival. It seemed at this point to be possible only for Karu to create successful production companies in Finland.

The competition between the two companies proved to be fruitful. At the end of the decade there were about twenty full-length features made every year. The quality of the productions was high, the field of the subjects expanding and the popularity of domestic films increasing. With its own stars and creative producers, Finnish film industry began to remind a national miniature of Hollywood. Alongside with the two big studios, some minor ones did well also.

Sound had increased the public's eagerness to see domestic films. The great breakthrough for Finnish talkies came with The Foreman of Siltala Farm (1934), a well-recorded comedy by Suomi-Filmi, that was seen by over 900 000 viewers.

Suomi-Filmi

Karu was instantly replaced with Risto Orko as the head of company, a place he held until the 1990's (although this was long after the company had stopped movie-making). Orko had directed The Foreman of Siltala Farm, and he returned to directing a few times since, most notably with two historical and patriotic dramas at the end of the decade: Soldier's Bride (1938) and Activists (1939). Most of his films as a director remain forgettable.

The most important director at Suomi-Filmi was Valentin Vaala, who had a stunningly creative period at the end of the 30's. After the silent years, Vaala had directed three more films for his first company Fennica. When he started the fourth, the company went broke. Now he moved to Suomi-Filmi, and although his first movie there (Everybody's Love, 1935) was quite a modest comedy, it was very popular, and most importantly, introduced two of the most beloved Finnish stars to the public: Ansa Ikonen and Tauno Palo.

Vaala's last Fennica-films had been urban comedies, a genre which he greatly developed at his new studio with his next two light-weighted films, Substitute Wife and Substitute Man (both 1936) . Hulda of Juurakko (1937) was far more serious attempt in the same field: a socially conscious story about a country girl who arrives to the big city, and who inevitably faces the problems of inequality between sexes. The film and its subject were greeted with huge enthusiasm by the audiences.

Vaala was also a master within the rural subjects and romantic melodramas. In 1938 he made the first and best film in the series of agrarian family saga of Niskavuori (Women of Niskavuori).

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