A man uses a case of mistaken identity to gain the confidence of a small village, and in the process exposes universal human traits: honour, greed, honesty, and eventually love.
One man's quest for revenge in a post-apocalyptic world
A lawyer pays a visit to Matti Ojanperä, a bum living under a bridge in the Helsinki harbour, to inform him that he is about to inherit an American aunt of his. The sum 1,000,000 Fmk would be his, if only he meets the qualifications set by his aunt. He must show that he is capable of 'living properly' and possessing a 'respectable occupation and a family he can support'. Otherwise the money would go to a foundation the chairman of which the lawyer himself happens to be!
A female fashion model Anni Stark takes leave from the fashion business and goes to Finland's Lapland for a vacation. Little does she know that there's a totally lunatic bunch of local hillbillies living in a nearby farmhouse. The plot thickens as one of the residents begins to harass Anni, who is left alone in the wilderness with only her dog to protect her. Too bad for her that her dog turns out to have divided loyalties.
Young Alex Sammakko has seen his brothers defy the law in a series of deeds that first land them in jail, and then, after they escape and return to their rural home, land them back in the lap of their locally notorious family. Alex wants nothing to do with them. He is in love with Mirja, whose family is not that different from the Sammakko's, but who shares Alex's viewpoints and feelings. Not helping matters is a police department convinced that all Sammakkos are bad, and the family itself, pressuring Alex to follow in their murky footsteps.
In this somber, psychological drama about the conflict between a man's innermost feelings and a society that puts these feelings in a strait jacket, the mood is ruminative and depressing throughout. Alone, Viktor (Sven Wolter) heads off for his usual summer vacation to some islands where he can ostensibly look for antiques for his wife's shop in Stockholm. His marriage is a failure or worse -- he raped his wife before he left home, and he is obsessed by erotic imaginings. Once on the islands, he makes friends with a little girl whose mother is mentally disturbed and is kept by her husband in a locked room. The islanders are as tight-lipped as Viktor, and any communication is stiff and artificial. Viktor's own alienation begins to slip as he takes surprising, violent action to turn around the imprisoned mother's life -- but it does not work, nothing seems to work -- and his last actions indicate that he may not be willing to simply give up.
This biographical film celebrates the little-known life of the Finnish novelist and revolutionary Maiju Lassila (Asko Sarkola), born in 1868. Lassila's early years are briefly shown, then the film richly details his active and paradoxically reclusive adult life, beginning with his sojourn in St. Petersburg, working as a businessman. Unable to stay away from politics, he caused the assassination of a high-ranking Czarist and as a result, had to run back to Finland to hide. Once established in the comparative safety of a small village, he taught school in order to support his real vocation as a writer. Always living on the edge of poverty, if not square in the middle of it, Lassila continues to avoid public contact - he keeps his identity low-key and camoflages it by publishing under a variety of pseudonyms.
Based on the Bertolt Brecht play, the movie follows the farmer Puntila, who when he's sober is a real pig but whenever he gets drunk becomes very generous. Puntila is trying to get his daughter to get married, but the problem is that his drunk self wants her to marry another man than his sober personality wants.