The best Risto Tuorila’s movies

Second silver screen adaption of the Finnish war book by Väinö Linna. The story is based on Linna's experiences as an infantry man in the Finnish army during the so called "Continuation War" (1941-1944).

The story bases on four Finnish brothers, nicknamed 'the Eura Daltons' who received nation-wide notoriety for tearing gas pumps apart when they needed cash. The cast is an impressive one: the brothers are portrayed by Peter Franzen, Lauri Nurkse, Niko Saarela and Jasper Pääkkönen while their really evil father is played by Vesa-Matti Loiri, one of the grand old men of Finnish cinema.

Twelve-year-old Tommy reluctantly moves with his father from the big city to a small Lapp village - the childhood home of his mother, who has recently died. The village is close to the northernmost wildlife reserve in the world, where Tommy's father will be working on a project to release a captive lynx into the wild. The boy gradually falls under the spell of his new surroundings, and discovers that his mother was involved in protecting the local lynx, and, when his father's project fails, and the lynx is about to be sold, he decides to set it free himself. A dramatic series of events ensues, and Tommy, through his brave actions, regains the trust and respect of his family and the village.

Through the eyes of two 12-year-old boys, the sexual revolution arrives in a conservative and religious small town in Northern Finland.

Like it or not, almost anyone who has met a really serious poet finds that they have something about them which sets them apart from other people. It's not just a romantic legend. In wry but basically directionless Finnish movie, Paavo Pentikainen plays one of these ungainly beings, a man whose last published work is decades in the past, who probably hasn't written anything in years, but who still has an uncanny knack for precise observation, "pinning the tail on the donkey" almost every time. In the movie, the poet, accompanied by his young assistant, takes a minor celebrity's swaggering tour of small cultural centers and retirement homes.