Hirtettyjen kettujen metsä

Hirtettyjen kettujen metsä is based on Paasilinnas book with the same name - the title translates to The Forest of the Hanged Foxes - and was released less than three years after.

The book itself was very popular and remains one of the author's most lauded books. The adaptation seems to have enjoyed less success, and there are several reasons why. It feels like a cheap home made 80's movie, and it was made on a low budget by a company that only released a short film and a documentary besides this. The two main actors were at least professionals with over a decade behind them each. Many of the others don't seem to have any acting background nor experience, this includes the director who only made another B-movie before calling it quits.

The story has something in common with Trainspotting in that the protagonist, Oiva Juntunen, is a criminal who is waiting for his crony, another very dangerous criminal called Siira, to be released from prison. Oiva isn't looking forward to Siira's release, not at all. On the contrary, Siira is quite a violent man and Oiva expects that Siira wants to kill him in his calculated fashion. You see, Oiva sits on three bars of gold, robbed from the Bank of Norway, one of which was supposed to belong to Siira. Another belongs to a third thick-headed crony nick named Sledgehammer, but this information is only found in the book. In any case, Siira (and Sledgehammer) served five years in prison for the robbery - (the book reveals that the three had planned and agreed upon this ahead of time, but the movie doesn't reveal this) - and now Siira's sentence is coming to an end. The thing is, Oiva has gotten used to a life in luxury by now and doesn't aim to give up any of what he sees as his gold. Siira isn't going to be happy to hear that.

So now Oiva hides out in the wilderness in Finnish Lapland, trying to evade both the law and Siira. Chance would have it that Colonel Remes comes upon him, a man prone to heavy drinking and who is tired of all the paperwork his job entails. Together they strike up a curious friendship and make a home there in the wilderness, soon joined by Naska Mosnikoff, a stubborn nonagenarian lady who is evading those who want to put her in a retirement home, and a feisty fox named The Five-Hundred Bill.

One could say that this is 'that' kind of comedy: Put mismatched people with strong personalities together in a small house and comedy will happen. This is at least how this film feels. The book is a tall tale of the Finnish kind, a tradition which Paasilinna upheld throughout his authorship, and which he was the foremost keeper of. A recent popular action movie called Sisu shows that it is perfectly possible to make films that belong to this tradition, yet The Forest of the Hanged Foxes adaptation fails in this.

The actors don't act much. The camerawork is below the standard for most B-movies. The sproingy synth track sounds like a frog that has gotten into Colonel Remes' liquor reserves. At times the film skips part of the book, which the result that some of the things that are going on doesn't make sense unless one also reads the book. That includes part of the ending. But there are parts with great slapstick, such as of Oiva chasing a fox in his underwear and wellingtons. And the sentimental feeling the reader got for Naska in the book is even improved upon in the film.

So, in short, the movie largely fails to be what it perhaps should have been, but still retains some good moments nonetheless, especially if you can see the humour in bad movies.