The Unknown Soldier (1955)

I consider this epic as the war movie of all time. Words are insufficient to describe something, that has been such successfully transferred through real-life experience to screen. To help understand the miracle of Winter War where small, but unique spirited Finland stopped the attack of an overwhelming enemy. The events of courage and will that ensured the nation's independence.

Fmovies: Okay, I know in Finland this is like Citizen Kane to them, I've even looked at message boards here to see how much Finland loves this movie. I thought that I might take a look.

My overall reaction of the 169 minute version was that it displayed the violence like how you'd want it to be, for a 50's movie I was expecting tamer violence, Although... As far as Finnish war films go I prefer the 1989 film Talvisota, it's all opinion. The one thing I did find weird was that the characters went through violence like that and they're acting light-hearted for what you'd expect the dialogue to be, I was expecting the dialogue to be more grim than it actually was, Not that it wasn't grim - There is a scene where a soldier gets shot and injured, the platoon then believes he's dead and he then wants to die and that The Russians can't aim for him and he then commits suicide, it's just the dialogue that's light-hearted.

In my opinion this movie has full reason to be considered a classic, (I rated The Seven Samurai the same rating) I will watch the remake done by Rauni Mollberg, I will not expect the same quality type of movie though I will expect a remake that is still good yet nothing on this, maybe a perfect example of a remake being not as good as the original yet still good is the remake of the German movie Nosferatu.

In my opinion I think this does have full reason to be considered a classic (unlike a few American films I've seen) but it's not as good as the hype around it was suggesting - will watch the remake though.

This war classic starts with Jean Sibelius' Finlandia.It shows how all those brave men fight against Russians in the WWII and many of them get killed.Tuntematon Sotilas from 1955 is directed by Edvin Laine and it's based on Väinö Linna's novel.This movie is filled with great actors.Reino Tolvanen is the legendary Rokka.There are also Veikko Sinisalo, Åke Lindman, Pentti Siimes, Matti Ranin, Jussi Jurkka, Tauno Palo, Tapio Hämäläinen, Olavi Ahonen, Tarmo Manni, Mikko Niskanen and Veijo Pasanen just a few to mention.The 6th day of December is the Independence Day of Finland and they usually show this war classic on that day.This year Finland has been 84 years independent.It's a good thing that they show this every year because this is the best Finnish war movie ever.This shows how brutal the war is.There are wars going on all the time somewhere.Right now there's the war against terrorists in Afghanistan.People just won't learn to live in peace.I'm just glad that Russia and Finland are in peace with each other now.I think we all should love each other, not hate.But what can I do.This just is the world we're living in.But I recommend this Finnish war drama for everybody, no matter where you're from.It lasts for 181 minutes but it's not too much for this movie.

The Unknown Soldier fmovies. The Unknown Soldier is a cinematic epic as well as a Finnish film classic. Though I have never read the original novel its easy to see why many Finns find it so compelling. Also, generally as a film it is an extremely strong example of what Finnish cinema is capable of.

The movie is a grade-A example of a good war-film, that doesn't rely solely on gruesome imagery or battle footage, but is interesting because of its strong characterization. The characters in deed are the most memorable part of the movie, despite being somewhat over-blown. The over-all tone also varies nicely, between light-hearted humour as well as extremely bleak imagery.

In all the film has only two major weaknesses. First the slightly dragging narrative responsible for the over-all length of the film as well as occasional lack of authenticity. But even with these weaknesses the film delivers a powerful message.

Over the decades, Väinö Linna's The Unknown Soldier (1954) has become one of the most popular and beloved Finnish novels of all time, despite initial criticism and controversy about the naturalistic and gritty portrayal of the soldiers' life on the front. When the book was understandably very quickly adapted to the big screen, the directing duties were given to Edvin Laine who would later go on to direct the film adaptations of Linna's epic novel trilogy Here Under the North Star as well. Like the book, the film has become one of the cornerstones of Finnish fiction: the film is shown on television every Independence Day and the book is widely read in schools. Having read the novel twice and seen the movie several times, I can confirm that their classic reputations are very much deserved.

Set during the Continuation War (1941-44), The Unknown Soldier tells the story of a machine gun company consisting mostly of young inexperienced men from all around Finland. At the beginning, the drafted men cheerily leave for the front when the war between Finland and the USSR breaks out again after the brief Interim Peace era. Gradually they grow more and more disillusioned with their chances of ever winning the war and a grudge against the strict commanding officers grows among the company. Battle after battle old friends are killed and new soldiers brought to the front, but the men have only their own spirit to trust.

The character gallery is too numerous to be listed entirely, but all the soldiers have their place in the story and many have become commonly referenced archetypes of different types of Finnish men. It is difficult for me to pick my favourites among them, but the most essential ones include at least Antti Rokka (Reino Tolvanen), an older and very skilled soldier with an anti-authoritarian attitude, Koskela (Kosti Klemelä), a calm and respected platoon leader, and the highly uptight and often ridiculed company commander Lammio (Jussi Jurkka). Particularly Rokka has reached a legendary status in Finnish culture; his rich Karelian dialect, self-confident antics and superior skills mix excellently into an extremely entertaining and often laugh-out-loud funny character. On the other hand, Koskela and Lammio can be seen as the two opposites of leader types; in their personas, practical and theoretical approaches to leadership often clash, even if Koskela would prefer his men to not constantly provoke his superiors' anger.

At the risk of the review becoming too list-like, I cannot leave some other great characters without a mention. The personalities range from the always cheery Vanhala and Hietanen (Leo Riuttu and Heikki Savolainen) to the brooding and menacing Lehto and Lahtinen (Ã…ke Lindman and Veikko Sinisalo), the frightened Riitaoja (Olavi Ahonen), the hilariously eccentric Honkajoki (Tarmo Manni), the business-savvy Rahikainen (Kaarlo Halttunen) and the idealistic Kariluoto (Matti Ranin). The men's diverse dialects are probably mostly lost in translation, but for Finnish-speaking viewers they provide one of the main charms of the whole film; personally I enjoy especially Rokka and Rahikainen's wide Karelian way of speech. Despite the excellent performances, I have to agree with the common criticism against the film: a lot of the actors are obviously too old for their roles and subsequently their behaviour seems overly juvenile at many points. Also, due to this the young men's age difference to the experienced Rokka is not as clear as it is said to be. The age issue does not r

There is no better war-film ever made in history. This ruthless Saga of Finland struggling against former Super Power of the world is just heavy true story. You can almost feel the fear in finnish soldiers who are doing all they can to stop russians march. Movie is fullfilled with black humor what is so common even todays finns behaviour, when they find themselves in though position. I watch this movie every year, cause I like it so much, and I´m not even a patriot or like so much about war movies in general. I recommend this movie to all. "Tuntematon sotilas" (The Unknown Soldier) is a made from the book with same name on it and I think book is even better, but of course you can´t ever compete with a movie against book (Sorry about my poor english).