{mosimage}{sidebar id=37}One of the nicest surprise last year in the Finnish film industry was this Suden Vuosi (The year of the Wolf). Now available on DVD.
K rista Kosonen has become one of the biggest surprises of the Finnish cinema landscape during last years, not only for her undeniable beauty, but also for her good acting skills in films like Jade Soturi or this present Suden Vuosi. She, as an epylepthic and talented young Literature student, is the backbone of Saarela´s movie, together with a very effective Kari Hesikanen as Mikko Groman, the University professor whose concentration on Baudelaires work and absence from taking care of family responsibilities is going to cause him more than one headache.
Krista Kosonen looks perfect as the forbidden fruit, young, fresh, and with an excellent balance between shyness, naiveness and voluptuously. The spectator could hesitate about if the couple will work on screen at the beginning of the film, but they certainly do when the story advances. The director goes for a very conservative treatment of the relation and the sex scenes, quite far from other Finnish sagas such as the three parts of Levottomat, for example, where frantic sex is present all over the action.I found a bit annoying the role and stridency of Aksa Korttila as Mikko´s sister, but Johanna Af Schulten is superb as the professor´s arrogant ex – wife. Looks like Finnish actresses have a special talent for those kind of roles, after a similar and also magnificient interpretation by Susanna Anteroinen as Hanna in the also pretty reccomendable Valkoinen Kaupunki.
The ending is a bit weak compared with the rest of the film, but all in all, Suden Vuosi was able to climb very high in the ranking of my favourite Finnish movies. Good photography, good script and excellent acting. A must see movie for those of you who want to know what is going on in the Finnish contemporary cinema nowadays.
Rating 4/5