FilmInterview

Rambo in Finland: ‘I really love films where people are picking on the wrong man’

First Blood was a key influence on the remarkable Sisu by director Jalmari Helander

Jorma Tommila in Sisu

Tara Brady's face
Tara Brady
Sat May 20 2023 - 05:00

Speaking to this newspaper in 2021, Guardians of the Galaxy architect James Gunn sang the praises of the storming 1970 caper Kelly’s Heroes, in which a group of maverick American soldiers (including Clint Eastwood and Telly Savalas) sneak across enemy lines in search of Nazi treasure.

“[It] had a lot of different fun elements from the sort of backdrop of war to the caper heist and the sneaking and the high stakes,” said Gunn, who drew inspiration from that film for his anti-superhero flick The Suicide Squad.

Gunn, it transpires, was ahead of the curve. Killing gold-grabbing Nazis is back in fashion.

Make a note in your diary for May 26th, when the plainly titled adventure Blood & Gold drops on Netflix. The new German-language heist follows a disillusioned army deserter (Robert Masser) who sets out to thwart an SS plot to steal hidden Jewish gold.

READ MORE

[ James Gunn: ‘If superhero movies don’t change, it’s gonna get really boring’ ]

Jalmari Helander’s keenly anticipated Sisu hits cinemas on the same day, coasting along on some of the best reviews of the year and favourable comparisons with Inglourious Basterds, Mad Max: Fury Road, and John Wick. Tellingly, a poster for Rambo: First Blood hangs above the writer-director’s head as he speaks via Zoom from his office in Finland.

“First Blood is definitely the biggest influence on this film,” says Helander. “As I kid, I watched all those ‘80s and ‘90s action movies, and they are still close to my heart. I really love films where people are picking on the wrong man and teasing him and suddenly we see what he is capable of. There are a lot of other things in the film coming from Sergio Leone and the western. That was going to happen automatically because I have a man on a horse riding across the landscape. You can’t avoid it.”

Earlier this month, Helander’s action film grossed more than $3.3 million in its opening weekend in the US, a remarkable achievement for a Finnish film with an R rating and no recognisable stars.

“It’s pretty interesting what’s happening right now,” says Helander. “And I am keeping my fingers crossed.”

An opening title explains that the Finnish word Sisu means “a white-knuckled form of courage and unimaginable determination in the face of overwhelming odds”. There’s no easy or direct translation, says the director.

“It was a lot to think about,” he says. “How to put it into English words in a satisfying way. I had to spend time on it. You don’t have to explain to anyone living in Finland what ‘sisu’ means. The film itself is the explanation of the word.”

Sisu is set in 1944 when the Nazis are retreating from northern Finland with a “scorched earth” exit policy. A voiceover explains that solitary, grizzled prospector Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila) has “left the war behind”. The German bombers screech overhead as the silent panhandler digs in lonely terrain with a dog and a horse. His few possessions include a rifle, his pickaxe, and a tent. He hits an improbably large gold-bearing vein. Having loaded it up, now he just has to get past an SS tank company and their female captives.

When we read the script for the first time, he was like, Okay, there’s a lot of really weird shit going on with this character and I’m over 60 years old

—  Jalmari Helander on working with actor (and brother-in-law) Jorma Tommila

The ruthless Germans, led by SS Obersturmführer Bruno (Aksel Hennie) and his rapey subordinate Wolf (Jack Doolan), are initially inclined to let the haggard old-timer pass. The gold persuades them otherwise, but the Nazis quickly realise that they have underestimated the man and overestimated his vulnerability to bullets, explosions and anything else they can think to lob at him.

It’s a gruelling performance from 64-year-old Tommila, who previously collaborated with the director on his 2010 scary Santa horror-comedy Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale. He’s also the filmmaker’s brother-in-law.

“There were no challenges for me, only for him,” smiles the director. “Because we know each other so well and because he knows what I want and I know what he is capable of, I never had anyone else in my mind. Jorma was the first person I called when I had the idea.

“Of course, when we read the script for the first time, he was like, Okay, there’s a lot of really weird shit going on with this character and I’m over 60 years old. But he’s in really good shape and he really made the film.”

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

The author, screenwriter, and director was born in Helsinki in 1976. He began his career in music videos before scoring an international hit with Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale. He has subsequently presided over the 2014 sequel, Rare Exports: The Return, a novelisation, and a children’s book based on the film.

His 2014 English-language debut, Big Game, starring Samuel L Jackson, was the most expensive fiim ever produced in Finland, but failed to recoup its production budget

[ Big Game review: Samuel L Jackson has never been more game ]

“I was disappointed with how Big Game turned out,” says Helander. “And It got me in a difficult position because I wanted to go on to something bigger and better. And I raised the bar so high that I couldn’t meet it. I was writing a lot of stuff but I switched projects many times a year. I’d work on something and then decide I didn’t like it, I want to do something else. I wrote this sci-fi film and developed it for five years, and finally, as we were ready for production, the pandemic came, and everything went to shit. I was so fucking angry and frustrated and jealous. I thought I would never do anything again. And somewhere in that darkness, Sisu started to grow. I wrote it from start to finish in two months.”

The long journey back to production had only just begun. Helander’s wildly imaginative collection of Nazi deaths, and the hero’s improbable survival, required careful staging.

“I was very pleased when I came up with the underwater sequence, he laughs. “I’ve never seen anything like that before. But it took me a while to figure out how to do it.”

We shot right in the tip of the country. It’s the wilderness. There are no good roads where we were going. That was a huge challenge, but being in that magnificent place was worth it

The remote Lapland location was equally challenging. The filming of Sisu took place at the end of summer, as producer Petri Jokiranta – the director’s wife – wished to capture the colours of autumn in northern Finland.

“It’s the furthest you’re going to go in Finland,” says Helander. “We shot right in the tip of the country. It’s the wilderness. There are no good roads where we were going. That was a huge challenge, but being in that magnificent place was worth it. We all had to stay in a holiday village for tourists miles away. We actually had to postpone shooting for two weeks because it was the time of the year when the green turns to red. Everything was booked up for more than a year. We couldn’t get a single bed. Almost everything had to be transported from Helsinki. We had to get cars and a horse and soldiers in uniform and all the movie equipment to a location where there is no electricity. But it was a cool sight to see our tank.”

The tank, he notes, was a compromise, one that has prompted a great deal of speculation among the kind of military enthusiasts who can easily spot the difference between a Stug III and a Panzer IV.

“I wanted a Tiger tank,” says the filmmaker. “I think there is only one functional Tiger tank and that’s in the UK. Our tank is about 10 years too new. Basically, I didn’t have a catalogue of tanks I could pick and choose from. All of the uniforms and vehicles and guns are of that time. I’ve heard a lot of complaints. But the tank was the biggest and closest we could get to the original.”

Sisu opens on May 26th

Finland