Niskavuoren Heta

Heta from Niskavuori / Heta från Niskavuori. FI 1952. PC: Suomen Filmiteollisuus. P: T.J. Särkkä. D: Edvin Laine. SC: Hella Wuolijoki, Paula Talaskivi - based on the play by Wuolijoki (1950). DP: Pentti Unho. Starring: Rauni Luoma (Heta), Kaarlo Halttunen (Akusti), Mirjam Novero (Siipirikko), Martti Katajisto (Jaakko), Leo Lähteenmäki (Santeri). 93 min. Introduced by Anu Koivunen. Viewed at SEA, Orion, Helsinki, 19 Jan 2005. The first masterpiece by Laine, already a veteran of the Finnish theatre and cinema. He had directed and carried the male leads of most of Hella Wuolijoki plays, but this first HW film of his is a very cinematic epic, with long purely visual sequences. Heta, the last to get married from the great Niskavuori manor, weds a farmhand, and they start to build their life from scratch. Heta's whole life is built on pride, to transcend the humiliation of being rejected by the man she loved ("Once I had a heart, but it froze in your hands"). Heta and Akusti build a new manor, even bigger than Niskavuori. But the real feat happens with humble Akusti who grows to be a wise and just leading figure of the municipality, to the end ignored by Heta. This epic of Finnish society from the 1890s to the 1920s even tackles the taboo subject of the 1918 Civil War quite strongly. It anticipates the concerns of Laine's films based on Linna (the unknown soldiers, the North Star cycle). ****