NEWS ANALYSIS: Period pieces clean the table at Jussi movie gala

Music - and acceptance speeches - were cannily used for advertising and endorsement of a presidential candidate

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By Pertti Avola
     
      The Jussi awards, the Finnish equivalent of the Oscars, have again been handed out, and this time under fairly sunny skies. The number of national premieres was as many as 29 last year, which is already on a par with the best film years of the 1950s.
      and yet the nominees had been selected on a rather narrow basis.
     
Period pieces steamrollered on practically all fronts. The films collecting the largest number of prizes were Le Havre, Hella W, and Hiljaisuus (Silence).
      Juha Wuolijoki’s Hella W was a biopic about Hella Wuolijoki, the internationally acclaimed businesswoman, playwright, and politician, and was set mainly in the 1940s.
      Sakari Kirjavainen’s Hiljaisuus is the story of a group of people working at an assembly point for casualties killed in action during the Continuation War. The scene is also naturally set in the 1940s.
      Aki Kaurismäki’s Le Havre is an epoch movie of its kind. Yes, the issue discussed in the film - the status of illegal immigrants in Europe - is clearly very much one of today’s problems.
      But the film itself is pure Kaurismäki epoch, neither distinctly modern nor in the past, but set in a kind of dreamtime inside the movie itself.
      Le Havre collected six Jussi awards, while Hiljaisuus picked up four, and Hella W two prizes.
     
More interesting than thinking of which movie collected what award is rather the matter of which films had not even been nominated.
      Anu Pirilä and Kari Kankaanpää have certainly both earned their Jussi awards for Best Costume Design and Best Art Direction in Hella W.
      However, it was rather strange that Anna Vilppunen and Kaisa Mäkinen, who did the same jobs for the movie Missä kuljimme kerran (Where Once We Walked), had not even been put on the shortlist for an award.
      The same applies to Mauri Sumén, who composed the music for Missä kuljimme kerran. And is Mika Kaurismäki’s quality documentary Mama Africa not regarded as a Finnish film at all?
     
It was also strange that Minttu Mustakallio was not among the nominees for Best Actress, as her role as Karita in Taru Mäkelä’s film Varasto (The Storage) is one of the best and funniest performances in her entire career.
      In fact Varasto had received two nominations (for Best Supporting Actress and Best Direction), but did not get any Jussi awards.
      However, the film picked up the Audience Award as best picture of the year, which is always a telling sign.
      The truth is that when it comes to many other Finnish premieres in 2011, the audience more or less voted with their feet. For all the multitude of new domestic releases, very few movies actually found a public, and a great many died an ignominious death at the box office (see earlier articles).
     
Since the beginning of live broadcasts, the annual Jussi gala has become more and more similar to the Oscar shindig.
      The show went smoothly enough, thanks to the absence of the apparently almost mandatory element in Finnish gala ceremonies, namely the embarrassingly awkward jokes told by host pairings.
      Host Lorenz Backman handled his duties in a crisp matter-of-fact manner, while some awardees with their rambling thank-you speeches did vaguely bring to mind those made at Oscar galas.
      However, unlike the Oscar gala, the Jussi ceremonies did not present music from the movies that had been nominated in the Best Music category, but music from upcoming films.
      A nice little bit of guerilla marketing going on there.
     
Another kind of advertising was represented in the blatant endorsements given to one of the current presidential candidates by some of the award givers and receivers.
      As far as I can remember, this has never occurred before in this country.
      In this respect, Finland has really changed.
      Whether this is for better or worse, I'll let everyone draw their own conclusions.
     
The Lifetime Achievement Jussi was given to Elina Salo, for her long career, stretching back to the 50s.
      It was well deserved, and Salo, now 75, showed she was not done yet by also picking up the Jussi for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Le Havre.
      Aki Kaurismäki was not present to collect his statuettes for Best Direction and Best Script, but it was apt that actress Kati Outinen should do the honours - she is associated with his movies perhaps more than anyone else except the late Matti Pellonpää.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 31.1.2012


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Aki Kaurismäki´s Le Havre collects Jussi 2011 awards, including Best Picture (30.1.2012)

See also:
  NEWS ANALYSIS: Finnish cinema in search of the missing blockbusters (25.10.2011)
  Finnish movie industry expecting a record number of premieres this autumn (30.8.2011)
  Domestic cinema continues its search for box office hits (22.11.2011)

Links:
  Jussi Awards (IMDb)
  Finnish Film Foundation

PERTTI AVOLA / Helsingin Sanomat
pertti.avola@hs.fi