Theater Review Suomifilm’s secret folders depict the narrow female image of Finnish film through humor

Culture|Theater review

Suomifilm’s secret folders – in search of a lost female role, premiere at Theater Vantaa 23.2. Text by Pinja Hahtola and Mari Lehtonen, directed by Ria Kataja. Video and audio design Esko Paavola, lighting design Janne Teivainen, costume design Elina Vänttö. Pinja Hahtola and Mari Lehtonen will also be on stage, and Ria Kataja will also perform in the film parodies. ★★★★

Blurred eyes tear-jerked shirts, rotten women, and endless kissing chases in a summer national landscape.

When you look The secret folders of Finnish film excerpts from the “love scenes” of Finnish films of the 1940s and 50s, notice how far those times have come.

And yet, how far the journey still lies.

The first mentioned movie clips in the show are Marja Pensalan Between a fist and a gentle (1997), in which scenes from domestic films exploring gender roles have been compiled into a tragicomic ensemble.

Pinja Hahtolan and Mari Lehtonen the play written by him follows an idea similar to Pensala’s film. Under different themes, the performance explores what kind of look we have at a woman through celluloid. Every man’s gaze in the performance is represented by the CEO and director of the Finnish Film Industry Toivo Särkkä.

The picture shows at different levels a woman’s narrow place in a domestic film. The first, and somewhat negligible, level is the position of the contemporary actress in film and film productions. Hahtola and Lehtonen bring their own personal perspectives as a framework for the performance.

The biggest role in the show is played by diving into the female images of domestic old films through type parodies. On the third level, a researcher (Pinja Hahtola), who is tired of her depression, presents the types of women in the films, such as the sacrificial mothers, the dirty matron of Niskavuoru, among others.

The still life is rotated still rejoicing all around, after working hard with Särkä in fruitless salary negotiations Ansa Ikonen and Assi Nortia the secret folders of domestic films show us in front of us. The folders reveal great movie mailboxes in which Hahtola and Lehtonen depict the iconic male characters in Finnish cinema as women. The borderline between the comic and the tragic comes out perfectly Elevator milkman parody. Would laugh if he didn’t cry.

The show looks at its subject matter heavily through humor, and at times it’s silent that the show doesn’t drift into a one-tiered sketch character skallade. What in itself says a lot about classic female characters, for what other than just cardboard sketchy figures were the waving justinas and claras?

Especially delicious are theses about the mother of the Suominen family and Loviisa in Niskavuori. Lehtonen finds the intonation of an old Finnish film in the characters.

It has its own chapter Unknown Soldier film parody, the best of which is the opening of the actors from the making of the film.

Read more: During the golden age of Finnish film, a woman’s place had to be parked, and not everything is different: “Many people probably think that at least no one says that again”