Sisu
Written by Cameron Geiser
Sometimes you just need a good old fashioned B-movie. The term usually refers to films dominated by genre fanfare with your typical westerns, sci-fi flicks, monster movies, or just a good old fashioned noir crime caper- fret not fellow cinephiles, Sisu fits comfortably in this tradition as a bloody World War II B-movie. Though there is more depth to this admittedly very silly exploitation action flick than one would expect. Sisu is divided into seven chapters, with a yellow font that feels like it was literally ripped off of a paperback pulp novel. Each new chapter degrades the stability of the font in subtle ways, and this may not seem like a big deal to most audiences, but this was a calling card that we weren’t getting your average action flick.
For all the bloodshed and carnage that does eventually come, Sisu begins in relative silence with smaller quiet moments as Aatami (Jorma Tommila), an older prospector, sifts through mud and dirt until he eventually finds a speck of gold in his pan. Huzzah! One hole in the dirt later and Aatami hit the jackpot- enough gold to live well. All he has to do is fill up his bags and deposit the gold at the nearest bank. Which happens to be pretty far away. Down the road he eventually passes a convoy of Nazis heading in the opposite direction. They’re ragged after years of war and desperate to find a way out of their coming judgment and punishment. Thus when they search Aatami and discover his bags of gold and decide to take it, he fights back. I assumed Aatami was named Sisu throughout the film until some Finnish women that the Nazis captured spread the tale of Aatami, and the meaning of the untranslatable word Sisu.
Sisu made its film festival rounds late last year. Now the B-movie fun can be had in theatres across the nation.
As it turns out, Aatami isn’t just a nearly silent aged prospector, he’s “The White Death”, an actual legend from the Winter War between Finland and Russia in the earliest stages of World War II. As the young women tell the tale, encouraged by the fear Aatami instills in the Nazis after his first violent encounter with them, they describe what it means to be, or to have, Sisu. More than just grit or determination, Sisu means unyielding persistence in the face of challenging odds. So, while Sisu might not be Aatami’s real name- he *is* Sisu. He lives up to that title too- throughout the remainder of the film Aatami creatively dispatches the Nazis with brutal grandeur. The minefield chapter in particular was a high point of the over-the-top insane violence that Sisu offers. More than just an excuse to murder Nazis in new and entertaining ways (though that is a huge appeal for this film), Sisu cleverly subverts imagery of the prospector as a harbinger of colonization and land grabs whereas the Nazis are inserted as the latest version of Colonizers, attempting to steal the one treasure they haven’t destroyed in this country.
More than anything else Sisu feels like a throwback to exploitation cinema of the 1970’s in the best of ways. Action, gore, heroes that feel like the best parts of us, and stories that feel perfect and powerful.. Oh… oh my god- this might be one of only two movies that perfectly fit the Nicole Kidman speech at AMC theaters (The other being RRR). If you’ve been to an AMC theater at all since 2021 when they re-opened you know this speech by heart, whether you like it or not. If you’re looking for an incredibly violent action throwback, this one lives up to the Kidman standard. Sisu might not be the highest caliber of artistic expression on the silver screen- but it’s a damn good time at the movies, what more could you ask for?
Cameron Geiser is an avid consumer of films and books about filmmakers. He'll watch any film at least once, and can usually be spotted at the annual Traverse City Film Festival in Northern Michigan. He also writes about film over at www.spacecortezwrites.com.