Based on the 1954 Väinö Linna novel by the same name, The Unknown Soldier is a about the Continuation War between Finland and the Soviet Union, taking place in the years 1941 to 1944. For a brief summary of the historic background of the events, Stalin had invaded Finland two years prior (around the same time as he did the Baltic countries), but the Red Army was blocked off in the 100-day-long Winter War. Afterwards, the Finnish government signed a pact with Nazi Germany to receive equipment for the next war, which they felt was inevitable, and in June of -41, mobilised its army to invade the Soviet Union and reclaim lost territories. Finns tend to be very defensive about all of this, and it's easy to offend them by saying Finland was a part of the Axis. In the movie itself, when the soldiers cross the old border onto territory that was never Finnish, one of them points out they're all robbers and thieves now, and they later discuss who is the blame for the war with some Russian civilians.
The film is about a machine gun regiment full of soldiers from different backgrounds, as they fight their way to Petrozavodsk and retreat from the Soviet counterattack. Its led by three lieutenants, each of which represents a different method of wartime leadership, but the soldiers are the true protagonists. There's the merry comedian with a funny accent, the straight-laced socialist who hates the officers due to class differences, the always-cool Karelian farmer whose hometown fell to Soviet rule after the last war, the theatrical would-be inventor, the young and naivé recruit who refuses to listen to advice from his elders, and so forth. A lot of emphasis is put on outlining their different world views and personalities... but unfortunately, their names are very rarely used and many of them look alike. I know I have a bad facial memory, but this is my greatest criticism to the movie: I can't tell most of the characters apart from each other. It takes the drama out of a lot of the scenes when I can't tell whether the person who is getting shot has a name or not.
The actors are actually pretty good most of the time, aside from some of the cringe-inducingly bad bit players, who only get a death scene. There's one soldier who gets shot and asks an officer to pray for him, and if this movie wasn't fifty-six years old, I'd swear he's doing a really bad William Shatner impression. All the main actors are good, though. I especially like Tarmo Manni as Private Honkajoki. He doesn't get nearly as much screen time as the other actors, but he manages to steal every scene he's in.
The action scenes are kind of hit-and-miss: most of them consist of the characters lying in brushes and firing machine guns at some unseen enemy. The Russians are rarely seen at all, and most of the time the opposition's only mark on-screen is a constant artillery barrage. I think that the pyrotechnics used to achieve the shelling are really impressive, even today, and have a real impact. Personally, I would have preferred for the enemy to have more of a presence in the film, but other than that, the actual war in this war movie is pretty good.
Another problem I have with this movie is the script and editing. You can really tell it's a novel adaptation because the pacing and narrative cohesion are really poor. In a book, you can tell the readers via narration about how the war is going, and thus just show the important scenes between the characters. In the movie, there's no narration. It's replaced by minute-long montages of extras in uniforms marching. Thus, it's hard to keep track of how the war is going and where the protagonists' unit is moving to next. There are also many stand-alone scenes that don't really contribute much to the film overall, and are most likely just remnants of subplots in the book that were mostly cut for the movie.
The cinematography and score are unremarkable, except for the opening scene, from which the novel and film get their name. The unit carries the corpse of a soldier whose face is never shown and buries him, leaving a pine-branch as his tombstone and walking away, while Jean Sibelius' Finlandia plays in the background. The camera angles, the music and the lack of dialogue are a winning combination. Another standout scene is the one where Corporal Lehto and two privates are ordered to stand in attention for two hours in punishment for accepting munitions for civilians, and choose to remain still even when the Russians start bombing the field they're in. The editing between the stock footage of bomber planes and shots of the actors is done really well, and the explosions on the set have a real feel of danger.Overall, I can see why The Unknown Soldier is a classic, but there are several noticeable flaws, and it shows its age in negative ways as well as positive. It's worth seeing... but it gets a bit boring at times. Maybe next year I'll review the 1985 remake, and see if it's superior, as some people told me it is.
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