Over the past two nights, my sweetie-wife and me watched the Finnish film The Unknown Soldier  a three-hour epic that follows the operations of a machine gun company from the start to the end to The Continuation War. That was, started in 1941 with Finland invading the Soviet Union in hope of regaining territory lost in 1939’s Winter War when the Soviets invaded Finland. Allied with Nazi Germany the Fins expected a collapse of the communist state and for a ‘greater Finland’ to emerge; history of course tells us that did not come to pass.

The film boasts a large cast of characters as we meet the machine gun company just as they have finished their training and the invasion of the USSR has commenced. Released in 2017 The Unknown Soldier  does not glorify warfare but presents it in a stark unforgiving manner in which death is sudden, violent, and often unexpected. While the characters are devoted to their nation, filled with pride and patriotism, the script never devolves into jingoism and hero worship and instead focuses on the day-to-day reality of warfare in a small unit. Early victories buoy the characters’ moods but do not last as the invasion at first falters, stagnates, and eventually collapses into retreat and route. On the directorial front I particularly liked that Aku Louhimies maintained a line of direction for the invasion itself with motion from left to right indicating Eastward and into the Soviet Union and right to left indicating westward and retreat; fast shots of the company marching quickly established the current state of the war. The filmmakers avoided easy clichés for the characters and kept them complex with something difficult and contradictory motivations; they never ceased to be people  first and soldiers second.

The Unknown Soldier is currently available for rent as a streamed film on Amazon.