Die eiserne Zeit

Four-part TV-movie "Rauta-Aika" is based on Kalevala, but with lot's of changes. Kaleva is Finland's national epic, whichs ancient poetry is filled with spells, incantations, myths and heroic lore. Making of this film costed at least two milloin euros, calling to some sources maybe even more. The movie can seem often very artistic for people that are used to watch Hollywood and USA productions, but every detail in "Rauta-Aika" has it's purpose. Artistic style also makes this movie mysterious and the ambience of beeing at "ancient north" grows very strong.

There aren't many movie adaptations of the Finnish national epic Kalevala. I reviewed "Sampo" (aka. "The Day the Earth Froze") some time ago and even though I liked it, it wasn't entirely faithful to the subject material. Well, neither is "Rauta-aika" but it keeps the stories a bit more like we're used to knowing them. The biggest problem I had was that why doesn't Väinö (originally Väinämöinen) have a big beard like in all paintings. But if the biggest complaint is that superficial, that must mean that generally things are quite all right.

There are great actors (Vesa-Matti Loiri and Kalevi Kahra especially), great landscapes, and also some pretty good special efffects and dreamlike imagery here and there. I was surprised by a sword decapitation, with blood squirting from the neck like in horror films. That was the only scene that was so graphical, so I wondered that they must have really wanted that there because they took the effort to create the effect. So yeah, though it's mostly a drama with magical folklore stuff, there's also some occasional violence, nudity, and a bit haunting weird scenes.

Four parts felt like a suitable length for this mini-series. It was enough to fit some of the key Kalevala themes in there but also brief enough to watch and it didn't feel like an overlong project. The fourth part was my least favorite because the ending had a bit weird meta-story thing and some quite surreal symbolism that went over my head.

Overall I recommend this for anybody interested in Finnish mythology, and also for fans of sword & sorcery/barbarian/fantasy movies. Perhaps it's not as cheesy as that kind of b-movies and has more serious and artistic style but nonethelesss it's a nice option for a different kind of sword movie.

While being a magnificent effort, this dreamlike miniseries felt it tried too hard to be "art".

The show expects the viewer to recognize it's Kalevala based characters and references beforehand. I enjoyed the beautiful Finnish scenery and how the big budget shows. Some shots are really impressive and even the score is ambitious.

Unfortunately "dramatic" expressionless stares don't turn into good drama. Storytelling is quite heavily on the slow side and often feels aimless. The "Golden woman" on the first episode has a disturbing and iconic look.

I gave up and stopped watching after the second episode despite having a sweet spot for artsier films and being motivated to finish this series. I don't know if this was considered a masterpiece when it first aired, but to me it feels a bit dated. Still A for effort!