The history of Finnish cinema is a history of Finland itself, a hard-fought progress from isolation to prosperity and self-determination. With little money or prospect for fame, Finnish filmmakers have created an impressive body of work, their efforts grounded in a characteristic Finnish doggedness call sisu, which loosely translated means "guts."Sisu is also a word that describes what might be called the Finnish national theme. As seen in this nine-film series drawn from a larger series at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, which examines major filmmakers and trends in Finnish cinema from the silent era to the present, the subjects of Finnish films may seem as disparate as those of People in the Summer Night (1948), an imagistic meditation on Finnish peasantry; and Drifting Clouds (1997), in which celebrated director Aki Kaurismäki follows two lonely lovers adrift in the "melancholy of cafeterias." What unifies the films in the series, however, is the ways in which their characters draw on sisu to cope with their special circumstances: the isolation of a language no one else in the world speaks; an unforgiving climate whose winters are cold and dark and whose light-filled summers, though restorative, are brief; a geography that is remote but also strategic, leading to bloodshed and social upheaval; and a history that inspires its own demons and saints.-Joshua SiegelPresented in collaboration with the Finnish Film Foundation and the Finnish Film Archive, which has provided prints, this exhibition was organized by Jytte Jensen, Associate Curator, and Joshua Siegel, Assistant Curator, Department of Film and Video, The Museum of Modern Art. Thanks to Peter von Bagh and Kirsi Tykkyläinen for their assistance. Film notes for this series are written by Jytte Jensen and Joshua Siegel for The Museum of Modern Art. We have added quotations from Peter Cowie's Finnish Cinema and other sources.Friday June 5, 1998
