Finnish film production

Many people claim that Finnish films can’t even be spoken of on the same day as American ones, and I’m not a huge fan of the Finnish film production myself either, but sometimes it might be reasonable to try to analyze what makes us form these opinions. Too many people skip Finnish films out of habit and don’t even bother to give them a chance. Sure, the leading roles are always given to the same few actors and you might not be blown away by the special effects, but the truth is that no-one really wants Finnish films to be made like the American ones. It simply wouldn’t be believable.

The best Finnish films are the ones whose makers know Finland’s and Finnish people’s strengths and aren’t afraid to use them. For example in the movie Rare Exports Finnish mythology has been combined with black humor and original Finnish action: not riding in some fancy high-tech motorboat but instead in an old snowmobile. Napapiirin sankarit succeeds in laughing at Finnish people themselves and once again the humor is so bad and tacky it actually makes it good. Somehow it seems that you can’t make a good Finnish movie without snow and winter, but luckily we have more than enough of those.

Finnish children’s movies and animations have done quite well lately. For example Niko - Lentäjän poika has been distributed to many countries and also liked there. Other successful 21^st century children’s movies, which have been acknowledged at least nationally, are Joulutarina and Risto Räppääjä. This might be because with children less is more, and the moviemakers don’t have to try to impress them so badly. When making a Finnish film, for kids or for adults, the best results are achieved with sticking to the kind of homey and down to earth approach to a subject which comes naturally to Finnish people.