My boots got stuck in this dirt

BACK STAGE
SASA MAJUMA | Tuesday June 26, 2007 00:00

 

It is the fourth and last film in a Swedish Film Festival - on the third and July 10 two French films by Jaques Audiard Read My Lips a.k.a Sur Mes Lvres (2002) and Beat My Heart Skipped a.k.a 'De Battre Mon Coeur s'est Arrt' (2005) will be shown.
Mother of Mine won many awards at different film festivals as 'Best Film' and the 'Audience Award'. It was the official submission from Finland to the Academy Awards in 2006 for best foreign-language film.
During World War II, between 1939 and 1944, 70,000 children were sent from Finland to live in various parts of Sweden, Norway and Denmark to escape the perils of the conflict.
 Mother of Mine is the story of one nine-year-old boy and his misadventures both in Finland and in Sweden. It relates events in 1943 to many years later (the present-day is shown in black-and-white) when an adult Eero Laine (Esko Salminen) tries to talk with his real mother, now an ancient Kirsti Lahti (Aino-Maija Tikkanen), about what happened to them. Mother and son for decades had failed to confront the chasm that stood between them created by war and the death of his father; her husband. She says to him, 'You never wanted to talk about it'. This was because he no longer felt she was his mother.
Finland was a so-called 'Axis' power, aligned with the Germans and involved in two wars against Russia between 1939 and 1944. Young Eero Laine (acted effectively by Topi Majaniemi) believes his father, a Finnish soldier, is invincible.
Then he leaves for the front and is never seen again. Unable to cope with such a devastating loss, his mother, Kirsti Lahti (played in her prime by Marjaana Maijala) deciders to send Eero 'on a vacation' to Sweden.
 Eero is determined, declaring: 'I'm not going.' He is promised a bike. Instead he ends up with a farming couple, coping with their own loss and trying to care for a grandfather crippled by a stroke.
Eero's new 'mother',  Signe Jnsson (the fine Maria Lundqvist, who won a Golden Bug in Sweden for her acting) had hoped a young girl would be placed with them, and was not ready for a boy, especially a willful and outspoken one. There are also communication problems as 'no one here speaks Finnish'.
The child's room is kept locked and the lad is told to sleep on the sofa in the kitchen like a miserable servant.
He can care for the farm's Skne Geese and must keep his hands clean through repeated and thorough washings.
Signe finds him a stranger and her alienation from the boy brings her husband's observation, 'You're the one making him a stranger'.
Sent to school Eero finds he is an outcast, laughed at because he takes shelter from a passing plane. He steals some money and supplies and tries to run away, but the immense Gulf of Bothnia, a vast expanse of water, is blocking his way.
The farmer, Hjalmar Jnsson (the charming Michael Nyqvist, the star of Together, As It Is in Heaven and The Guy in the Grave Next Door) finds him asleep in a Swedish military defensive pillbox. Asked why he ran away by Signe, the boy says, 'I don't like you, you're mean'.
She finds him obnoxious and ungrateful, a spoiled child who thinks he is on a vacation. She tells him to 'Stay away from the beach'. He can't, as home lies on the other side.
Signe complains to the agency and a matron, Mrs Gravais, comes to see what the problem is. In spite of Signe's wishes, Eero ends up staying on at the farm.
He returns to school and strikes up a friendship with Signe's niece. Eero also finds he can be friends with Hjalmar.
There are slow and subtle turning points until he eventually announces, 'I like it here'.
He quickly learns Swedish, and the ability to communicate with his foster parents and at it school helps immensely too.
There are some fascinating sequences, grounded in the realities of the time, relating to the importance of letters sent by the post, and news conveyed by the radio.
Mother of Mine is one hour and 44 minutes long. It is in colour and in Finnish and Swedish with English subtitles. The director is Klaus Hr.
The excellent script is by Jimmy Karlsson and Kirsi Vikman and is based on the original novel by Heikki Hietamies.
The cinematographer is Jarkko T. Laine; the editor is Parak Hodir; and the captivating music is by Tuomas Kantelinen. sasa_majuma@yahoo.co.uk