Elokuu (1956) User Reviews

The Harvest Month

[henriwr · 10/10 · 31 August 2007]

The Harvest Month is absolutely one of the best films that has ever been made in Finland. It is a story of Viktor Sundvall, a guard of a little channel in the Finnish countryside. In his youth he had great plans to become a playwright, but all his dreams were destroyed, when he began to drink.

The Harvest Month is a movie of the last day of the life of Viktor Sundvall. On that day he has to face his past. He faces the fact that he has not lived his life, because he has been too weak. He has been too afraid of life and that's why he has became an alcoholic. At the end of the film he understands that there is no more reason to live. Dieing is the only option.

"When a cat turns into a bear,now that's a beast."

[morrison-dylan-fan · 10/10 · 12 April 2020]

To kick off Easter Sunday, I decided to continue crossing over the ICM 1950's Viewing Challenge,with the Nordic Challenge taking place at the same time. The first Nordic title to appear on my downloaded list from the year,I got set to join the harvest.

View on the film:

Speaking directly to the viewer confessing his most inner thoughts,Toivo Makela gives a superb performance as Viktor, whose voice over/narration Makela carries with a awareness of having let it all slip down the drain, and a belief of no hope in changing his ways. Plastering a thin wide grin across his face, Makela cracks open the damage being a alcoholic has done to Viktor, via a aggression barely kept under the surface from those who try to stop him taking a sip, and a dead-eyes emptiness when his reminiscing of the past, dries up at the sight of the present.

Capturing the misery Viktor places on her shoulders, Emma Vaananen gives a great turn as Saimi, who Vaananen has bring out spikes of determination to fight against Viktor's attempts to make his alcoholism be normalised. Bringing the audience to Viktor on the canal of F.E. Sillanpaa's novel, writer/director Matti Kassila's adaptation displays a outstanding thoughtfulness in the character studying of Viktor, whose alcoholism touches all of his family, each of whom Kassila opens up to the wear and tear that Viktor has done to each relationship of those who love him.

Going into the pre-drink flashbacks that Viktor is fondly looking back on, Kassila carefully keeps away from melancholy or romanticism of the past,instead walking on the line of starkly capturing all of the relationships and chances to turn a new leaf, which have been left in ruins by Viktor. Against the rustic rural backdrop Viktor and his family live in, director Kassila & cinematographer Esko Nevalainen beautifully scatter the flashbacks over as overlapping dissolves, presenting them not as fondly held memories, but as ghosts during the harvest month.