Review: "Sauna"
This is a year of heavy Scandinavian representation at Fantastic Fest, and while the Danes have made a very strong showing, the Finns are not to be left out. Offered for our consideration is "Sauna", directed by Annti-Jussi Annila, who previously helmed "Jadesoturi", described as Finland's first and only foray into wuxia.
"Sauna" is not a title to instill confidence in American audiences, since it tends to conjure up images of a bunch of sweaty guys hanging out in a steam bath at the gym. That may be frightening to some, but it's probably not an image from which to build a classic horror movie. Nevertheless, the movie is indeed about a sauna...an EVIL sauna.
It's the late 1500s, and Sweden and Russia have just concluded a lengthy war. (Back in that time, Sweden was a great and fairly aggressive power and was not infrequently boiling over its borders into Russia and Eastern Europe. Finland was a province of Sweden in those days.) A joint Russian-Swedish mapping commission is tracing out the official new boundaries. On the Finno-Swedish side are the Spore brothers. The elder, Eerik, is a long-time cavalry officer who has grown up knowing only war and who harbors both an open hatred for Russians and a somewhat more concealed lust for killing. The younger, Knut, has led a more sheltered existence and is looking forward to a university posting in Stockholm at the conclusion of this mission.
Early on, Eerik kills a peasant who he has labeled a Russian sympathizer and who he claims was about to attack him with an axe, which is a bold-faced lie. Knut, meanwhile, shuts the peasant's daughter into a root cellar, allegedly to protect her from Eerik. But might it also be to lock away an object of temptation? It may be that Knut had been on the verge of his own crime, a violent sin of lust, right as Eerik came looking for him.
Before the murder can be discovered, the brothers insist that the commission push forward, and Eerik demands that they go straight into a giant swamp in order to map the new border right down the middle, but more conveniently to lose any pursuit. They leave the girl trapped in the cellar, and together with three Russians they push into forbidding and mysterious territory.
It is not long before they are encountering ominous signs, and Knut becomes convinced that he is seeing disturbing visions of the girl. Is she a ghost? Is she a figment of a guilty conscience? Knut weakly argues that they should turn back and free her, but Eerik pushes the group onwards.
They eventually reach a strange village in the dead center of the swamp, and here all that has been festering within begins to leach to the surface. Right outside the village is an old abandoned sauna, which the local elders say was there before they arrived years ago. In Finnish tradition, saunas can be used to wash away sins. But this sauna does not appear to be a place of cleansing. Moreover, it turns out the before the villagers migrated here, there was a Russian monastery. But the villagers found no signs of the monks besides discarded robes and various Orthodox icons.
Something is very wrong in this place, and *with* this place. And the longer they stay, the more the Russians and Finns seem to unravel, and the more the portents and signs of doom become apparent.
This movie would be justly described as brooding, atmospheric, moving at a deliberate pace to what seems an inevitable fate, laden with symbolism and hidden meanings. It is indeed the sort of thing that many will find slow and pretentious. Others will find it through-provoking. I tend toward the latter camp, although I admit that without a background in Finnish culture I am very likely missing a lot and misinterpreting more. And it is certainly possible that some elements of the story may not really hang together.
The key to the mystery seems to be the sauna, which predates all known human habitation in these parts. It is connected with various forms of lifelessness: it is in the middle of a trackless swamp filled with decay and stagnation. The villagers have not had a single child since they moved there decades ago. Even the local animals have been known to destroy themselves in some kind of frenzy. I would argue as well that we can understand the monks to represent the absence of life as well, given that they were a closed and isolated group of men sworn to celibacy.
I have to posit that the sauna was used for centuries by previous inhabitants--and that it reached the limit of the sins it could wash away. The more that people used it for its ritual cleansing purposes, the more the karmic filth began to accumulate. And eventually it became a sinkhole of darkness, and the swamp formed around it. But other explanations are definitely possible.
Another mysterious matter is that the number of villagers equals the number of Russian enemies Eerik has slain. Clearly this is of some significance, but what?
Ultimately there really is no clear explanation for a multitude of matters, and many viewers may find this frustrating or view this refusal to clearly explain everything to be a cop-out on the part of the story. Certain events at the very end certainly suggest a mystical element and not just growing madness and guilt on the part of the Spore brothers. Regardless, no miracles of redemption and salvation occur, and the conclusion does little to dispel the stereotype of Scandinavian bleakness and fatalism.
The ambiguity of the end--was justice served? and if so, whose justice?--is exactly the sort of thing that often infuriated me in a movie, but here I found it haunting and appropriate. (It reminds me of 1984's "Eyes of Fire".) This is a very well-made film for what I heard was an extremely limited budget. The leads are all cast extremely well. Ville Virtanen as Eerik *looks* madly dangerous, and Viktor Klimenko as Semenski seems completely natural as a Russian boyar. The costumes, by the way, are magnificent.
This is not the movie to see if you want a flat-out gorefest, or a quick-moving detour through terror with a readily explicable resolution. But if you enjoy something a little more enigmatic and foreboding, you may find much to like here.
"Sauna" is not a title to instill confidence in American audiences, since it tends to conjure up images of a bunch of sweaty guys hanging out in a steam bath at the gym. That may be frightening to some, but it's probably not an image from which to build a classic horror movie. Nevertheless, the movie is indeed about a sauna...an EVIL sauna.
It's the late 1500s, and Sweden and Russia have just concluded a lengthy war. (Back in that time, Sweden was a great and fairly aggressive power and was not infrequently boiling over its borders into Russia and Eastern Europe. Finland was a province of Sweden in those days.) A joint Russian-Swedish mapping commission is tracing out the official new boundaries. On the Finno-Swedish side are the Spore brothers. The elder, Eerik, is a long-time cavalry officer who has grown up knowing only war and who harbors both an open hatred for Russians and a somewhat more concealed lust for killing. The younger, Knut, has led a more sheltered existence and is looking forward to a university posting in Stockholm at the conclusion of this mission.
Early on, Eerik kills a peasant who he has labeled a Russian sympathizer and who he claims was about to attack him with an axe, which is a bold-faced lie. Knut, meanwhile, shuts the peasant's daughter into a root cellar, allegedly to protect her from Eerik. But might it also be to lock away an object of temptation? It may be that Knut had been on the verge of his own crime, a violent sin of lust, right as Eerik came looking for him.
Before the murder can be discovered, the brothers insist that the commission push forward, and Eerik demands that they go straight into a giant swamp in order to map the new border right down the middle, but more conveniently to lose any pursuit. They leave the girl trapped in the cellar, and together with three Russians they push into forbidding and mysterious territory.
It is not long before they are encountering ominous signs, and Knut becomes convinced that he is seeing disturbing visions of the girl. Is she a ghost? Is she a figment of a guilty conscience? Knut weakly argues that they should turn back and free her, but Eerik pushes the group onwards.
They eventually reach a strange village in the dead center of the swamp, and here all that has been festering within begins to leach to the surface. Right outside the village is an old abandoned sauna, which the local elders say was there before they arrived years ago. In Finnish tradition, saunas can be used to wash away sins. But this sauna does not appear to be a place of cleansing. Moreover, it turns out the before the villagers migrated here, there was a Russian monastery. But the villagers found no signs of the monks besides discarded robes and various Orthodox icons.
Something is very wrong in this place, and *with* this place. And the longer they stay, the more the Russians and Finns seem to unravel, and the more the portents and signs of doom become apparent.
This movie would be justly described as brooding, atmospheric, moving at a deliberate pace to what seems an inevitable fate, laden with symbolism and hidden meanings. It is indeed the sort of thing that many will find slow and pretentious. Others will find it through-provoking. I tend toward the latter camp, although I admit that without a background in Finnish culture I am very likely missing a lot and misinterpreting more. And it is certainly possible that some elements of the story may not really hang together.
The key to the mystery seems to be the sauna, which predates all known human habitation in these parts. It is connected with various forms of lifelessness: it is in the middle of a trackless swamp filled with decay and stagnation. The villagers have not had a single child since they moved there decades ago. Even the local animals have been known to destroy themselves in some kind of frenzy. I would argue as well that we can understand the monks to represent the absence of life as well, given that they were a closed and isolated group of men sworn to celibacy.
I have to posit that the sauna was used for centuries by previous inhabitants--and that it reached the limit of the sins it could wash away. The more that people used it for its ritual cleansing purposes, the more the karmic filth began to accumulate. And eventually it became a sinkhole of darkness, and the swamp formed around it. But other explanations are definitely possible.
Another mysterious matter is that the number of villagers equals the number of Russian enemies Eerik has slain. Clearly this is of some significance, but what?
Ultimately there really is no clear explanation for a multitude of matters, and many viewers may find this frustrating or view this refusal to clearly explain everything to be a cop-out on the part of the story. Certain events at the very end certainly suggest a mystical element and not just growing madness and guilt on the part of the Spore brothers. Regardless, no miracles of redemption and salvation occur, and the conclusion does little to dispel the stereotype of Scandinavian bleakness and fatalism.
The ambiguity of the end--was justice served? and if so, whose justice?--is exactly the sort of thing that often infuriated me in a movie, but here I found it haunting and appropriate. (It reminds me of 1984's "Eyes of Fire".) This is a very well-made film for what I heard was an extremely limited budget. The leads are all cast extremely well. Ville Virtanen as Eerik *looks* madly dangerous, and Viktor Klimenko as Semenski seems completely natural as a Russian boyar. The costumes, by the way, are magnificent.
This is not the movie to see if you want a flat-out gorefest, or a quick-moving detour through terror with a readily explicable resolution. But if you enjoy something a little more enigmatic and foreboding, you may find much to like here.
posted by Purukivel at 8:10 PM
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