One of my all time favorites.

Awesome Movie

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

I did like the idea of bringing people of three different tongues together, and the comedy that followed. Once everyone was safely inside the kota (the Saami tent) the movie was quite enjoyable.Unfortunately, before that it was quite tedious. The story of the chained sniper simply wasn't believable at all, rather ridiculous instead, and while the friendly fire incident on the Russian side could have happened, together the two were a bit too much.Also, I found Haapasalo's lines about war clumsy, preachy and stiff. He was talking as if reading from a book: while people do often write in a formal manner here in Finland, very few actually talk like that. Those who do are usually considered great bores. Since I don't speak Russian or Saami, I can't tell whether the other characters suffered from the same problem.Visually the film was excellent in places (especially with landscapes), and the story had potential, but could use quite a bit of improvement in the first third of the script.

This is a film ripe in mysticism. I guess you could say its a film for mystics. A man chained to a rock, a medieval woman practiced in witchcraft, and an eerie vision of the land of the dead....all powerful mystical images. For good measure lets throw in reindeer, fish, twins, and people all speaking in different tongues. Well, if you want to explore your inner spiritual being....this film will certainly help a lot. It would have been nice to see the grandmother actually turn herself into a dog but I guess you can't have it all. Quite a trip this one. This movie has a lot going for it, the cast was really good and there were some nice comedic touches as well. It made me ponder how we become civilized and put our faith in science which is nothing more than an empty bucket that doesn't even have water inside.

A parable as told in three simultaneous soliloquies? Anti-war mini drama that succeeds in what must be used to combat such aggression, forcing the enemy to see each other as actual people. Well at least as archetypes.Comedy is introduced via the fact that the three leads share no tongue, and in fact, oft times the exact wrong message is misunderstood amongst them. Again, this amplifies the mistakes that masters of war can make. In more typical comedies, we get the wink in a scene before the scene, i.e. we know a dog is already dead before something peculiar happens...but in this the humor is left to the subtitles, unless you've got polyglot potential.Still the film by and large worked even for this ugly American, the strangeness of the languages and the scenario (I knew vaguely of Laplander life, and had no idea how they would be affected by WWII). In some ways, this film is really quite simple and had Hollywood made it, I'm not sure if I would grade it as favorably to be honest.For example, the Prometheus reference was enough without having Veiko actually utter it. Also how would one accept the near-death journey across the Finnish finish line. And in the US, would we have been as charmed by Renee Zellweger in the female lead? Hopefully we'll never know, this film is perfectly enjoyable as it is. The story/locale is not our nest, and we should respect that.I found the two male leads quite well-spoken on the extra portion of the DVD, as befits their roles. We are led to believe that these two warriors are really more sensitive literal souls, a reader and a poet. I did like the former's attempt to use book titles, "War and Peace", "The Idiot" in his fruitless attempts to communicate to "Ivan." On the extras, the female lead seemed miles away from her "salt of the earth" (ironically without any salt) character in the film. Spoiler coming...again I think this film is worth watching. Stop reading here if you have not yet, please.So the ending, I guess is needed to really play up the parable in this...we are all brothers, or all our children are brothers. Interesting that the film was made by a Russian director, and the Russian character in the film is the more misguided missile. Of course, hinging his hatred upon the Germans and the SS band does make for a more complicated film, but the tale here really is quite simple.Yet not so simply heeded...sadly.7/10

After struggling through the first 50 minutes, I got smart and Fast Forwarded it on 8x - and didn't miss a thing! Several pieces of the film are good to excellent - the acting, scenery, set, and production are the highlights. But, nothing can save it from the abysmal script - and the plot can be summarized in 3 sentences (which i won't do here). Watching this film is like watching 3 simultaneous uninteresting monologues. No one even pretends to know that they aren't being understood. I've been in situations involving extreme language barriers, and this isn't even remotely close to reality - or entertainment. By the end, I figured out that I'm 'cuckoo' for sitting and watching more than 15 minutes of this film (which would probably be more interesting without subtitles)!