Cinema
Kuisma ja Helinä
Kalle Kaarna · 1932
Synopsis
In the 1880s, a detachment of unruly Cossacks takes up quarters in the Sankola house, in Häme. Their leader, the handsome Kuisma, catches the eye of young Helinä, the adopted daughter of the house. But the head farmhand, Isma, loves her too, and cannot accept this attraction: the young woman finds herself caught between the occupier's officer and the farm boy.
Context
Based on a rhymed narrative in eleven cantos by Larin-Kyösti, published in 1902, it was written by the director with Katri Viita and released on 10 January 1932 at the Capitol and the Gloria in Helsinki. It was not a full talkie: the exteriors were post-synchronised, the dialogue recorded only in the studio. The public came, but the critics reproached it for its display of Russian romanticism, Cossack rides and songs included. Unseen for more than ninety years, it was made accessible in 2024.
Who it is for
A film from the early days of Finnish sound cinema, in Finnish; it helps to know that Finland was Russian in 1880 and that the troops are quite legitimately garrisoned there.
Prizes and reception
A popular success in 1932, and one of only two films by its author to have survived the fire in which the rest were lost.