Rauta-aika

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.