Narcos - Season 3 (2017)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2017
	Creators: Carlo Bernard, Chris Brancato, Doug Miro, Paul Eckstein
	Actors: Pedro Pascal (The Adjustment Bureau, Game of Thrones TV-series), Alberto Ammann, Damián Alcázar
	Country: USA
	Genre: Polar, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: November 2017, VOD, 10" tablet screen
Synopsis: After the death of Pablo Escobar, his former allies of the cartel of Cali (Ammann, Alcázar) take the lead on world cocaine trafficking. DEA agent Javier Peña (Pascal) is back to hunt them down.
Review: The king is dead, long live the king(s)! After two memorable seasons, the Netflix TV-series Narcos is back for a new thrill. We get to follow the Cali cartel which has a very different way of doing business than the one of Medellin had. This impacts the pace of the season which has less violence and terrorism to show, and more search for legal ways to stop a cartel much better organized. For example they were spending a billion dollars a year for intelligence (can that be true?). This is reflected by a new character in that season which is the head of security. DEA agent Javier Peña is now operating alone but we see him supervising two new guys eager to get to work. I think I heard that he did not participate to the real events, and in general even though this season is still based on real events, I could feel that more liberty was taken with them, especially in the timing and coincidence between those events. The added dramatization makes the season even easier to watch than the two first ones in fact, except if you were looking for a more documentary style that it has lost. Apart from that, the style of the series has slightly evolved but it keeps on delivering what the audience liked: narration by Peña has replaced the one by Murphy, there is always tension at the US embassy and corruption at most levels of the Colombian government and Police, but still always a man with irreproachable integrity, and the characters are relatively complex except the son of one of the cartel leaders, no one can like him. In addition to the main characters that I all found very well played, I could note the short presence of Edward James Olmos (from the Battlestar Galactica TV-series) and Wayne Knight that I could recognize anywhere after having watched a hundred times Jurassic Park.
Rating: 6 /10

QEDA (2017)

	Also Known As: Man divided, Der geteilte Mensch
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Max Kestner
	Actors: Carsten Bjørnlund,
	Country: DK, FIN, S
	Genre: Drama, SF
	Conditions of visioning: 03.11.2017, CineStar5, NFDL2017, Danish with English subtitle
Synopsis: Humanity was not capable of securing its own existence, however we did figure out how to travel through time. But that means doubling up – or more accurately put, splitting in two. Fang Rung (Bjørnlund) sends his other half back to the year 2017 to save a scientist’s research results that could save the world from destruction. Unfortunately his other half likes it so much in the past that he breaks off all contact with the present. Fang Rung travels back after him to prevent the past from falling apart..
Review: QEDA develops a theory of temporal mechanics. The theories of the apocalypse due to air and water pollution are convincing with the yearly COP disasters (one in Copenhagen COP15) in 2009). On the technical point of view, the system of time travelling and society that without water can spend massive quantities of energy is not very credible to me. And this affects all the visuals in the futuristic sceneries. On the philosophical and ethical point of view, the story-telling is excellent. And in particular the role and dialogues of the remaining Fang Rung and the dialogue with his second half.  In general there is a good work on the roles and on the actors. Carsten Bjørnlund shows a promising talent. The music is good, based on a theme of Tainted love and two types of remix.  Well done for a first non-documentary movie by Max Kestner.
Rating: 5 /10

Operazione paura (1966)

	Also Known As: Opération peur, Die toten Augen des Dr. Dracula, Kill baby kill
	Year of first release: 1966
	Director: Mario Bava
	Actors: Giacomo Rossi-Stuart, Erika Blanc, Giovanna Galletti,  Fabienne Dali
	Country: I
	Genre: Horror, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 18.11.2017, arte.tv, Italian version with French subtitle
Synopsis: Dr. Eswai (Rossi-Stuart) is called by Inspector Kruger to a small village to perform an autopsy on a woman who has died under suspicious circumstances. Despite help from Ruth (Dali), the village witch, Kruger is killed and it is revealed that the dead woman, as well as other villagers, have been killed by the ghost of Melissa, a young girl who, fed by the hatred of her grieving mother, Baroness Graps (Galletti), exacts her revenge on them. Dr. Eswai, along with Monica (Blanc), a local nurse who moved recently to town, are lured into a fateful confrontation at the Villa Graps.
Review: When I saw that arte.tv was streaming some movies by Mario Bava, one of the creators of Giallo, I was amazed and had to watch it. Operazione Paura is considered as precursor horror movie for Dario Argento and others. Especially the use of a child as focus of the fear, the doll initiating fear. Other features, the old Italian mansion, the lost village, the garden of the big mansion, are typical for many horror movies, from Suspiria to The others. The story starts really like the Dracula story. A guy enters in a lonely region with a cab who is afraid to go further. The clothes he wears at the beginning, the long coat, reminds me Nosferatu. But there is a village, with living people. The omerta forcing the villagers not to talk about their dark stories. The long corridor with armours. The colours of the night mixing green, red, yellow, give also the direction that would remain in all Italian horror movies of the 70s until going sometimes psychedelic.  The image composition is time to time really good! When Dr. Eswai runs behind somebody opening always the same doors in the Viall Graps. When Monica and Dr. Eswai try to go down the stairs in a vertiginous travelling in a style like the Vertigo by Hitch in 1958. There are many travelling and camera movements that are relatively fast and precise over the scenery and this gives a tense atmosphere.  As milestone of the Italian horror cinema and as precursor of many classical horror features, Operazione paura can be considered as a great movie. There are unfortunately some flaws in the story and especially in the dramatic part such as the discussions with the Baroness.
Rating: 6 /10

Liebe Oma, Guten Tag! (2017)

	Also Known As: What we leave behind
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Jurate and Vilma Samulionyte
	Actors: -
	Country: LT, D
	Genre: Documentary
	Conditions of visioning: 03.11.2017, CineStar6, NFDL2017, Lithuanian/German with English subtitle
Synopsis: A filmmaker Jurate and a photographer Vilma start a search for clues to reconstruct their grandmother’s life. Her story is like something out of a period drama, yet it’s all real. After the war, Ella returned to Lithuania to wait for her fiancé. Then the iron curtain separated her from the rest of her family, and all traces of Ella were lost. When she was 72, she killed herself. Many grey zones exist in Ella's life that the two sisters want to clear.
Review: When I saw the I interview (see embedded video below) of the two sisters, it felt so touching that it confirmed my impression (passion, debate, curious, open) on Baltic cinema and my wish to discover more of it.  The movie follows the process of the research on the grandmother. Therefore the sisters exchange ideas (who to ask, where to search), doubts about the progress, fears about opening secrets. In this type of family research, they experience discoveries about the Oma, about the administrative difficulties to be German or to speak German in Lithuania after the WWII; disappointments not to find key persons of Oma's story. It is noticeable that the Lithuanian neighbours of Oma knew she was German but never saw this as a problem, unlike the Lithuanian administration. One important aspect is the fear of their parents to talk about the German family and about what happened to Oma. It took the duration of the production to win the confidence of their mother to show the movie in public. The German co-author focused on the historical aspect of the grandmother journey. The production started whereas everything was unknown, as it started at the same time as the research. And nobody knew how it would continue. By luck the production team's approach was: "Do the film and then we will see".  This movie and also how it has been done are the best motivation for all who have stories in the family about which the elderly do not want or have difficulties to talk.
Rating: 7 /10

Ishavsblod - De siste selfangerne (2016)

	Also Known As: Sealers - One last hunt, Die leztzen Robbenjäger
	Year of first release: 2016
	Director: Trude Berge Ottersen, Gry Elisabeth Mortensen
	Actors: -
	Country: N
	Genre: Documentary
	Conditions of visioning: 01.11.2017, CineStar6, NFDL2017, Norvegian with English subtitle
Synopsis: Hunting harp seals is a centuries-old tradition in Norway. In some families, generations of men have taken to the seas between Greenland and Iceland, where the animals, prized for their skins, gather on the ice. But seal hunting has long since fallen into disrepute. Public outrage, an EU ban on trade in seal products, and the withdrawal of state subsidies spelled the end. One hundred years ago, 200 ships regularly set out on the hunt; today only one remains. Rough and ready captain Bjørne won’t give up. Along with his first officer Espen, he hired a crew.
Review: I was curious to see this type of hunter, especially because they have been bullied internationally by many NGOs. On the ship there is a lot of craft work of all kinds, shoot the seal, run on the ice-shelves to get the seal, separate the fur from the meat, clean the tools, clean the ship. Even if it is not popular, traditions are part of a culture. And the hunters we see are very respectful of the animals and of the nature in general. Now there is no need to hunt seal to survive and by luck the fur is no more trendy in the western fashion. Tradition. The people in the harbours of Norway really buy and eat the seal meat. And the hunters use everything from the seal as well. Seeing hunting like in the forests of Western Europe as a mean to regulate the animal populations is not really what happens in this journey. It is rather an adventure including sailing in extreme conditions and seeing amazing landscapes of ice-shelves on the Atlantic Ocean. Rather than greed to kill there is a contemplation of nature and proud of being one of the few seeing these landscapes. The image often applied a tunnel effect to give the focus on something, especially at the beginning when we see the preparation, the departure and the first ice, the landscapes are astonishing and the image harp only on few percent of it. This disappointed me as I did not understood why to give this kind of focus.But the rest of the images are so amazing! Ice shelves moving with the waves give the impression that the Earth is shaking and ... wow!  The people working on the ship have this nice roughness of the sailor, the immense respect and few words of the Scandinavian and transmit this authenticity.  Finally the movie happens to act as a good advertisement for the sustainable seal hunting. I do not know whether the goal was this or just to present the journey. In any case, the tradition of seal hunting in these very nordic regions deserve attention like other traditions. I like the movie because it questioned the stereotypes (that I had) about the greedy seal hunter.
Rating: 6 /10

Exfrun (2017)

	Also Known As: Die Ex-Frau, Ex-woman
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Katja Wik
	Actors: Ellen Olaison, Maria Sundbom, Nina Zanjani
	Country: S
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 03.11.2017, CineStar5, NFDL2017, Swedish version with English subtitle
Synopsis: Anna (Zanjani), Vera (Sundbom) and a friend (Olaison) are at different stages of life. Taken together, the film’s three narrative threads paint a picture of a relationship in all its phases, from the beginning to the end. The beginning, only seemingly a walk in the park. The stress and tests that beleaguer the life of a couple with small children. And the demoralisation at the end, when you’ve cut off the dead wood, but the scar still itches.
Review: Common life is supposed to be boring. Exfrun shows that also in common scenes of human life there is tension, dramaturgy and passion. The three roles are observed precisely. They all seem to be enloved and feel deception as well as live or remember joyful moments. All this seem as real as what I hear from my friends for years! During the Q&A after the movie, the director Katja Wik confirmed that it has been over ten years of behaviour study before writing this story about a type of common women. Therefore it depicts normal life and normal emotions. The scenes are very sensitive and touching. The acting is also very realistic compared to my environment. Of course, in any partnership both can behave better or worse than in Exfrun. But I like the balance in Exfrun.Thanks to the experience of casting, Katja Wik succeeded in finding three actresses with talent and matching their roles with freedom and emotion. The camera frames the women. Men are out of scope of the camera and women are in the middle of the screen without arty tunnel effects but with the clean composition. This gives sometimes a strange feeling to miss something from the scene. But it allows and forces also to focus, to see the women roles. And this is great! This gives a lot of room to the three main actresses and this works well. They are all greatly human in their roles. To me this brings the common life to its right rank.  In the Q&A after the movie, Katja Wik expressed how close she is from the characters of her movie. She shows a lot of sensitiveness and emotion. And I like this in a person! She is a talent to follow.
Rating: 8 /10

WarGames (1983)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1983
	Director: John Badham (Saturday Night Fever, Short Circuit)
	Actors: Matthew Broderick (Godzilla), Ally Sheedy (Short Circuit), John Wood
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller, Adventure
	Conditions of visioning: 13.11.2017, VOD, 40" TV screen
Synopsis: Computer nerd David (Broderick) manages to remotely access the military computer controlling the US nuclear arsenal and engages in what he thinks is a harmless game.
Review: Watching the second season of the TV show Stranger Things made me wish to re-discover some of those classic 80's teen adventure movies, a genre that includes E.T., The Goonies, Short Circuit and this WarGames that inspired the nerd kid that I was when I saw it some years after its release. It had all the right ingredients for that and I guess I am not the only one from my generation who fondly remembers it: many at that time could identify with that teenager with few friends, surfing on the wave of fast-developing computers, and able to jump-start a public phone with a piece of aluminum can. Remember that the 80's were also the decade of MacGyver. An older or younger audience, without this capacity to let nostalgia take over, will probably see more defects and loopholes in the movie, starting by quite an incredible plot. But looking carefully at the movie you will notice that the director didn't take his topic too seriously either (for example the reactions of the General are pure comedy) so that the audience could take it at different levels, and this choice may very well be what makes the movie still watchable nowadays. What I could appreciate now beyond nostalgia is the main couple of characters: two teenagers brought to live in a very natural manner by Broderick and Sheedy both at the beginning of their career. I found both to be far from clichés of the time, whenever they are alone or together (the girl hits on the boy for example). So the movie has aged a little and cannot be taken too seriously (depending on who you are in the audience) but it was for me nice to watch.
Rating: 6 /10

Mercury Rising (1998)

	Also Known As: Code Mercury
	Year of first release: 1998
	Director: Harold Becker
	Actors: Bruce Willis (The 6th Sense, Die Hard 1-5), Miko Hughes, Alec Baldwin (The Hunt for Red October, Pearl Harbor)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Drama, Thriller, Polar
	Conditions of visioning: 12.11.2017, VOD, 40" TV screen
Synopsis: When a 9-year old autistic kid (Hughes) deciphers the latest military encryption code, an FBI agent (Willis) will have to protect him against the NSA agents that see him only as a threat.
Review: Teaming up Bruce Willis in a movie with any kid in the 90's would unavoidably have resulted in a buddy comedy, but if the kid is troubled, for example sees dead people like in The 6th Sense, then you get a hit. It is even more true when Willis plays an cop or FBI agent, a role in which we are used to see him tough, and that the kid is autistic, i.e. communication is nearly impossible and Willis has to reveal his soft side to get the trust of the kid. This encounter between the hard shell / soft core cop and the vulnerable kid is what works to perfection in Mercury Rising, maybe partly because we weren't expecting that from Bruce Willis who was still at the peak of his career at the end of the 90's. And he managed well to play both sides of the character like we rarely saw him doing: bad-ass action hero of course, but also sensitive and protective towards the kid, himself very touching and well played by Miko Hughes. We get even ore attached to their relationship that the "bad guys" (led by Baldwin) are particularly merciless as they are ready to kill a child. For a similar story but with an even more troubled guardian, I remember that there wss Man on Fire with Denzel Washington in 2004. Mercury Rising is yet another example that the 90's were not totally void of good movies, especially in the Thriller genre.
Rating: 7 /10

3 ting (2017)

	Also Known As: 3 Dinge
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Jens Dahl
	Actors: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Birgitte Hjort Sørensen
	Country: DK
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 02.11.2017, CineStar5, NFDL2017, Danish with English subtitle
Synopsis: Mikael (Coster-Waldau) is an explosives expert who has one foot in prison due to bank robbery and one foot in the witness protection programme. Now he’s in a hotel room with police to prepare his testimony against his accomplices. He gave three conditions to talk about the robbery. Step by step a plan becomes visible.
Review: The movie is a perfect entertainment. Action with the attack by the Serbian maffia, romance in front and in the back of the police, thriller with all the events that happen, the phone calls and the obviously expected mistakes leading to the expected final. An intelligent bad guy, a police team with weaknesses and a sexy ex-girlfriend. The casting fits to the role even if the roles could have been more interesting. But the tension is coming from the unicity of location and the almost in camera hearing. The directing masters the action in the style and pace of the 90s without too fast cuts.  But the movie may not remain that long as it does not bring much originality even if it is efficiently written by Jens Dahl.
Rating: 5 /10

Perfect blue (1997)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1997
	Director: Satoshi Kon
	Actors: -
	Country: J
	Genre: Animation, Polar, Horror
	Conditions of visioning: 12.11.2017, Cinema am Ostertor, Weird Xperience, German version
Synopsis: Mima Kirigoe leaves the J-pop group Cham, in order to pursue her dream as an actress. Her agents Rumi, ex-singer, and Tadokoro drive her in different directions. Mima climbs up the rocky road to success by performing as rape victim and posing nude for magazines, but is haunted by something.
Review: The story is really complex involving several layers of interpretation for most the movie, so that I was always wondering what was real and whose imagination I was watching. Then the complex machniery is sorted out with many twists and turns. The dramaturgy is amazing, the different steps in the story, the way the characters are drawn fitting to what the story is supposed to tell, the different views of living and dead bodies as well as the time when these images appear. The style of the movie is maybe the most original and marking thing of this anime. It takes some features of the subgenre that we like a lot in JoRafCinema, the Giallo. A woman at the verge of a nervous breakdown, an almost invisible criminal, a few mysterious characters looking suspicious (Me-Mania), nudity and sexuality. But no killer with black-gloved hands. The psychological distortion of Mima is excellently rendered via the drawings and also via the voice, thanks to the German translation and the voice of Solveig Duda.  The blu-ray quality was quite bad, even if I don't know whether it comes from the blu-ray itself, by Rapid Eye Movies, or from the projection. It was also a good opportunity to meet the organisers of this projection Weird Xperience.
Rating: 7/10

Last Action Hero (1993)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1993
	Director: John McTiernan (The 13th Warrior, Die Hard)
	Actors: Arnold Schwarzenegger (Predator, The Terminator), F. Murray Abraham, Art Carney
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action
	Conditions of visioning: 11.11.2017, VOD, 40" TV screen
Synopsis: With the help of a magic ticket, a young film fan is transported into the fictional world of his favorite action film character Jack Slater (Schwarzenegger).
Review: At first Last Action Hero looks like another Action film with Schwarzenegger during his best period, and this is how I remembered it: the kid loved dumb Action films and ends up in one. But watching it again this time I noticed that the kid knows how dumb the movies are but that doesn't prevent him from liking them. In fact he appreciates those 90's Schwarzenegger movies like I do! Even more importantly, I like the concept of a movie in the movie, it provides a great opportunity for reflecting about movie making, acting and watching, even though it is limited to the field of Action films. It did remind me in different genres of the French Le Magnifique with Jean-Paul Belmondo (adventures shown on screen are exaggerated compared to real life), the creepy Anguish (the screen as catharsis) and Joe Dante's Matinee (kids and movies). Also check out this Wikipedia entry about movies set in a movie theater. And in the movie the real world is ours, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Jack Slater who jokes about Sylvester Stallone playing in Terminator 2 shortly before crossing the T1000 (Robert Patrick) from that movie. Without forgetting many cameos by Jean-Claude Van Damme, M. C. Hammer, Jim Belushi... And a nice intrusion by Death escaped from the movie The Seventh Seal and played by classic actor Ian McKellen (more known from the series X-men, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit). So even if it is "only" an Action movie and the Action in it is pretty over-the-top, I can only like it because it puts in perspective my favorite Art.
Rating: 6 /10

USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage (2016)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2016
	Director: Mario Van Peebles
	Actors: Nicolas Cage (Knowing, Face/Off), Tom Sizemore (Red Planet, Black Hawk Down), Thomas Jane (The Expanse TV-series)
	Country: USA
	Genre: War, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 12.11.2017, VOD, 40" TV screen
Synopsis: The story of the ship that was sunk by a Japanese submarine after delivering parts of the A-bombs that will be launched on Japan in 1945.
Review: This story is known of the fans of Genre movies like me thanks to a monologue delivered by Robert Shaw in Steven Spielberg cult Horror Thriller Jaws in 1975. In that movie the boat captain Quint tells how he survived the USS Indianapolis tragedy, spending several says in shark-infested waters. I do not know whether the fame of Jaws finally helped in producing that movie (it has been in the planning since the 80's) or rather the recent attempts at finding its remains (which were finally found in summer 2017), but I was half expecting a brief apparition by a character named Quint in there, half-disappointed that there was none. So the story is plainly told, from a brief introduction to the secret mission, its success, the attack, the survival, the shark attacks, and when you think it is over, half an hour of epilogue about the post-war life of the crew and the trial of their captain. Unfortunately it is told in a flat manner, without heart. The actors are OK including Nicolas Cage, the sets good-looking, and enough happens that you don't get bored in the two hours of the movie, but on the other hand emotions are flattened, not supported by the music (particularly not the shark attacks), and worst of all the special effects are really really cheap: ships, torpedoes, underwater shots... all look like a Playstation 1 video game. Is the director Mario Van Peebles to blame, him usually an actor, or the limited budget partly spent on the salary of a couple of known faces? If the emotion behind the story of this critical event in the Second WW was well told, I could overlook the special effects, but unfortunately the whole thing is not memorable.
Rating: 3 /10

Duplicity (2009)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2009
	Director: Tony Gilroy (The Bourne Legacy)
	Actors: Julia Roberts (Pretty Woman, The Pelican Brief), Clive Owen (Sin City, Children of Men), Tom Wilkinson, Paul Giamatti (Sideways)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Romance, Comedy, Polar
	Conditions of visioning: 09.11.2017, 32" TV
Synopsis: Former rival spies, Ray and Claire (Owen, Roberts) meet again now that they are working in the private field of industrial espionage. But it their meeting really accidental?
Review: I always like watching a good spy movie, even with an added romance side like this one which turned out to be better in the same genre than Knight and Day with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. The faked rivalry between the two characters is at the center of the story, but the movie is also interesting to watch for the espionage parts and secondary characters like the CEO played by Paul Giamatti. There are some flashback from their former life around the world, hints of romance between two people cautious (almost paranoid) by nature, and some twists that keep the story interesting until the end.
Rating: 6 /10

Stranger Things - Season 2 (2017)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2017
	Creators: Matt Duffer, Ross Duffer
	Actors: Winona Ryder (Alien Resurrection, Star Trek), David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Sean Astin (The Goonies, The Lord of the Rings 1-3)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller, SF
	Conditions of visioning: October - November 2017, VOD, 40" TV screen
Synopsis: One year after its encounter with a monster from another dimension, the little town on Hawkins faces a new growing threat, and the same group of nerd kids is again at its center.
Review: After a first season very popular with an audience nostalgic of the 80's, this one follows a very similar recipe: same kids including the eternal victim Will, same upset love stories, same puzzle-solving by the stressed-out mother Joyce, same 80's design, same government conspiracy, and even a new girl attempting to enter the group of friends causing frictions. In a nutshell, probably the best that could have been done for a second season to please the fans by giving them what they liked and want, adding a few new features. But if I appreciate that, I also already know that it won't work a third time and the creators will have to come up with something new for a next season. Among the new additions: the character of Bob played by Sean Astin who was playing a kid in The Goonies (this casting choice is not a coincidence) and a new Monster/boogeyman with a very well-done Chtulu look (see the poster, and for Chtulu my recent post on The Void). As for the first season, this one is very pleasant to watch: the kids are funny and touching, the monsters even more scary, and the synthesizer music matches well the action. This season is also even more filled with references, and I guess the producers even paid for the rights to show some of them: extracts from The Terminator, Ghostbusters costumes... It also consists of only nine episodes of 48 minutes which is rather short and makes it as easy to watch as a movie. The feeling is reinforced by the title Stranger Things 2 (instead of "season 2"). My questioning about the first season stills holds: I would recommend this one as well to viewers my age, but I don't know how a younger audience would take it...
Rating: 7 /10

Raja 1918 (2007)

	Also Known As: The border, Die Grenze
	Year of first release: 2007
	Director: Lauri Törhönen
	Actors: Martin Bahne, Leonid Mozgovoy, Minna Haapkylä
	Country: FIN, RUS
	Genre: Drama, Romance
	Conditions of visioning: 02.11.2017, CineStar4, NFDL2017, Finnish with English subtitle
Synopsis: In spring 1918 a young scientist and officer, captain Carl von Munck (Bahne), is sent to the village of Rajajoki to close the border between the newly independent Finland and Russia under Bolshevik revolution. He meets the soldiers and the teacher Maaria Lintu (Haapkylä). The flow of refugees in both directions (Finns, Swedes, Jews, and Russians) is so large that he must work closely with the Soviet border commander, major Gentsch (Mozgovoy), a former landowner whose estate has been expropriated. The latter, however, ruthlessly exploits the desperate situation of the refugees, enriching himself shamelessly. When Finnish nationalists demand that von Munck liquidate members of foreign ethnic groups, the border situations spins completely out of control.
Review: For the 100 years of Finland's independance, this movie shows this turn in History when the border has been declared and previous neighbours of the same village had to be separated into to two villages and two countries. The main story that looks sometimes like a romance sometimes not is not as interesting as the environment, the villagers going from one side of the bridge to the other without asking permission, the families that are split by the new border, the way the soldiers treat the refugees, the constructed hate between whites and reds in Finland and within the Russian refugees, the constant issue of classes, on both sides, the smuggler of wares. This was great to see it, that all the sides (whites and reds, Russians and Finns) have good people and awful people.  The acting of the mean Finn soldier was good because he becomes means slowly and transfers his emotions during this evolution. Maaria acts quite well also. The image looks much older than 2007, the lights are handled with some amateurism, and all this suggests that the story is old, but not as old as 1918. The movie has something fascinating even if many things are not done very well. This shows that with a good story and good secondary roles and stories, the weaknesses are not much visible.
Rating: 5 /10