A Sisu movie review needs only three words: bloody good time. There. That’s it. You may continue with your day. Well, there is a bit more to it. Director Jalmari Helander is clearly a fan of Quentin Tarantino and spaghetti westerns. I list them in that order purposefully.
The film’s story is a relatively light affair. The protagonist is Aatami, having abandoned society during the closing days of World War II. We find him initially prospecting for gold in the wilderness of northern Finland. Once he scores a considerable amount of shiny yellow metal, he packs up and begins a trek back into civilization.
Unfortunately, along his path are a troop of particularly unsavory Nazis, making their way out of the country. These villains would be happy to kill Aatami merely because they can. Once they discover the valuables he carries, their motivation gets a little more focused.
Blood. Guts. Violence.
What ensues is predictable, but rewarding. Your mileage will vary largely based on your tolerance for brutal violence. If you have a high tolerance, if in fact you have a penchant for the savage dispensation of cinematic baddies, wow are you going to like Sisu.
It’s easy to dwell on the gruesome, often clever kills doled out in the film. That is, arguably, the core value proposition of this movie. The marketing, frankly, could do a better job hyping that fact.
To be sure, the violence is clever and gruesome. There were kills I did not see coming. There were kills I totally saw coming and still was surprised by. The execution of the violence maximizes its impact like few films I’ve seen. Yet it never loses any of the humor these types of movies layer just under the blood and guts.
It is impossible to watch Sisu and not yell, loudly, some iteration of “Ooooh” or “Oh my gawd.” Your enjoyment of the film will be amplified if you catch it in a theater full of other fans. I highly recommend it.
But to dwell on the carnage is to miss the real strengths of Helander’s filmmaking. The plot is pretty thin, and the characters don’t have much in the way of arcs. If you’re coming to Sisu looking for deep thematic resonance, don’t. I advise you to find another way to spend 91 minutes.
None of those are knocks. This film is incredibly well made. Take this to the bank: If a director knows exactly what his or her film is trying to be, they’re already halfway to gold. Helander knows just what he is making, and he nails almost every moment.
Characters Lightly Drawn, But So Well
He is aided in that effort by two lead actors who know how to milk a closeup when dialogue is sparse on the ground. Jorma Tommila, who you’ve probably seen mainly in other Helander films, sells every aspect of Aatami’s experience with pure physicality. Considering he has no dialogue for the first 90 minutes, he hasn’t got much choice.
Make no mistake, Tommila’s showing range here. He is a tormented soul, having lost his family to Nazis and his humanity to fighting against them. Simultaneously, he is a ruthless, vengeful killing machine. His murderous impulse is so uncontrollable, his superiors essentially pointed at the woods. “Go kill Nazis and don’t come back,” they tell him.
Give him credit. He followed their orders.
There’s one, fleeting cut early on that perfectly encapsulates Tommila’s performance. As the Nazis take aim at his dog, running to escape their bullets, Tommila drops his stoic facade. Wincing as he hears each shot, you feel how clearly worried he is for his companion. You get what goodness is left, buried inside him, in those few seconds.
A push in on the bubbling rage painted across his face follows immediately. Then comes one of the first, most satisfying, kills in the movie. See! Range!
In opposition, Aksel Hennie as the SS leader of the Nazis uses his own facial expressions to convey both intellect and pure evil. He at least gets some dialogue to help him along. Its the physical acting, however, making his character sing. The subtle narrowing of his eyes, the moments when he looks into the distance, clearly thinking, it all works.
Filmmaking is Storytelling Economically
I am reminded of the Criterion Collection release of Armageddon. There were plenty of critics who questioned why Michael Bay was getting the Criterion treatment. This guy? The maestro of action excess and goofy characters? The answer was in the essay accompanying the DVD:
“In little more than one minute of screen time,,” writes Jeanine Basinger, a film professor at Wesleyan, “five key characters are identified established in specific environments, shown relating to others, given distinct personalities, and defined in ways that that indicate how they will behave on the later mission.”
That’s economical storytelling, and it is one of film’s unique strengths as a medium. Show, don’t tell. Make every cut count. We’ve all heard the cliches, and they’re all true. Where a novel may linger, a film must move.
Helander is doing a lot of that in Sisu. He gives you exactly what you need to know about each character, and nothing more, and he wastes precious little time on exposition.
The Nazi leader’s lieutenant is somehow even crueler than his boss, but not quite as savvy. You know this because we first see him climbing out of a truck. That truck is filled with clearly imprisoned women, and he has clearly been having his way with them. Helander establishes this villain in a matter of seconds, with nary a line of dialogue.
A Score and Some Chapters
If the film falls down anywhere, its mainly in the obvious head nods to its sub-genre influences. Certainly, Sisu shares some of the narrative tropes of spaghetti westerns. Chief among them is the wronged hero turned avenger. The anti-hero who is hardly without sin is on full display as well.
But pay attention to the score. You’ll wonder if Helander couldn’t have asked his composers to riff a little bit more past Ennio Morricone. In fact, I spent a few minutes Googling after the credits. I needed to make sure the film didn’t straight up lift an old Morricone score.
The same goes for the chapter breaks. They splatter on screen in the same type style as old posters for The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. I didn’t mind them, however unnecessary they were, but they were a little on the nose in their influences.
Not that it ultimately detracted from the film. I love Morricone’s music, spaghetti westerns, and 1960s movie marketing. Tarantino is watching this film somewhere, making heart-shaped googly eyes. My hope is that he steals cinematographer Kjell Lagerroos for his next (and allegedly final) film.
While you wait for Tarantino to wrap up his filmography, you’ll have a ton of fun enjoying the latest entry in Helander’s.