''In the war you never know, you just go where they tell you. ''

 TALVISOTA 

Better known as ''The Winter War'', this is a film made in 1989 having in focus the Russian attacks over the Finnish territories in the infamous year 1939. Besides the filmographic quality and the acting, what impresses me above all with this film (which I've watched a few times by now) it's the soul fragmentation in human tragedy which the soldiers have to face step by step as the story evolves. I will not comment on the political background of the events, even if these were at the core of the story itself and were the real cause for the real events of the Winter War.

These soldiers are simple people, most of them farmers, taken initially to military manoeuvres from their homes in an atmosphere of incertitude whether an armed conflict will take place or not; they soon themselves involved in the ''real thing'', leaving their dear ones at home, confronting themselves with shortages of all sorts, dealing with different kind of superior officers, watching the death of their relatives and friends on the field, losing hope, losing sleep, lacking adequate food, becoming good mates of lice, getting a rare occasion to have sauna, but gaining trust and bonding to what only extremes situations bring in people's life: solidarity, materialised in this case in the form of camaraderie - which is the only good thing in war, if anything is good in them.
Progressively, the world they knew shatters, including the hope of returning to the life they had before. Among the biggest defeats which all soldiers must face, they lose the understanding of those at home, who without being confronted to the bleak world of the trenches, fail to understand these farmers, now soldiers, defending their native lands. They've not seen bodies blown by bombs for instance and their perspective on the confrontations stays stuck at a level of superficiality and in best cases, worries for their sons who fight. Yet if a son returns (as it's the case of Paavo Hakala) he's not seen and treated as he should be, as the family's understanding of the ways of the war and world and view on life differ to the extremes. Paavo goes back to the front lines and dies.

In Talvisota I see what I see in all war films (better or worst produced): they represent a tool of keeping alive a  conscience of the atrocities of war (any of them) and of the uncaring political regimes, no matter of their political doctrine. It's yet another film on a cruel reality represented by the lack of care of those who command and the so called political interests, to which adds the direct impact on the innocent people who by duty for their land go to war. I also believe that it's easy to judge, sitting in a chair and typing this on the computer and that it's hard for any of us to walk in their shoes, of those who fought and some died for their country, no matter where or which country that is... unless ourselves were ever to be confronted to such a situation. It's not those who fight, but those to command that should be blamed, in my opinion. People fight because...well, for instance, would we nowadays permit to a neinghbour or a stranger to enter by force in our house and live there as they please, taking our house and goods etc? As superficial as the example is, it is how I understand that a man transforms from a  farmer or anything else to a soldier: one has to defend what is theirs. Talvisota is a lesson in that sense. That lesson seems to be found in the final scene of the film, which I find the most tragic of them all: Martti Hakala's look contains that lesson and the numbness when it is announced that the fights are over. He's not the man he used to be prior to the war and the world will never be the same either.

This film, just like most of the war films are a reminder if we have eyes to see: that it should not all happen again. But how ironic it is to think that and hope that people and compromised politicians would change: only in the last couple of months there were news of conflicts in too many parts of the world.
Why does it have to be that simple people turn to soldiers each generation? Why do they have to die and those who don't have to reach the top of human pits of solitude and desperation...and find that there's no god, no family, no friends except in ther mates and their rifles?
As wise people put it: History Lessens.