Sisu is exceptional @TIFF2022

Over the years FERNTV has covered many Finnish films mainly focusing on family during the Toronto International Film Festival. This year we found that a Finnish film landed under the Midnight Madness programme and we were quite excited. Director Jalmari Helander (Rare Exports, Big Game) returns to TIFF with a mature instalment to his resumé. Sisu focuses on an old prospector, played by Jorma Tormilla, who finds quite the amount of gold in Lapland, Finland. Unfortunately this takes place on the brink of WWII and there’s a team of Nazis soldiers who want to claim the gold for themselves.

The team of Nazi’s is led by SS Obersturmführer, played by Aksel Hennie. He and his team has an ample amount of men and military equipment to take down this one man gang. To help the Nazi leader is Wolf, played by Jack Doolan (The Boys), who is the muscle of the team. The odds are in favour for team Nazi in this case. As they quickly and mysteriously find out, this one man has some history with Nazis in the past. The man is a “sisu” which is a Finnish term for white knuckle courage and determination to beat undefying odds. Team Nazi don’t believe that they can be defeated by one man. Their men start to dwindle and their confidence in their own team plumets. The Wolf and SS Obsersturmführer are determined to take matters ironically, in their own hands.

A Balancing Act…

Sisu has to be one of the best selections to the Midnight Madness programme over the past few years. The premise of the film is so raw as a period piece that Helander flawlessly puts together. He puts the audience right into the beginning stages of WWII where the audience feels that tension and anxiety. The audience then cheers on the prospector because of his intelligence, determination and his John Wick style of killing Nazis. We love the blood and guts that are being shed. As well as bodies blown up by military weapons and ammo. It has great balance that pays homage to films like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Saving Private Ryan and Rambo. This has to do a lot with the stunts and practical effects.

There’s never a dull moment in Sisu and its full of action and witty dialogue. Helander does not overdo it with his film with blood and gore like most of today’s genre films. Sisu gives you that well balanced diet of story and violence. Sometimes that’s all we need to make us happy. The film almost goes back to the roots of filmmaking and it gives you that warm loving feeling inside. Along with much hope for genre filmmaking today.