September 13, 2012

"The Marshall of Finland"

The first biopic about Baron Mannerheim, who led the Finns in the Winter War against the Soviets in 1939, will appear on Finnish TV later this month. Although I'm no expert on Finnish history, I suspect, judging from this 27-second trailer, that certain liberties were taken with the historical record to bring it more in line with Obama Era sensibilities:

53 comments:

  1. The 1989 Finnish movie, "The Winter War" ("Talvisota") is IMHO the best war movie ever made.

    It's hard to find in the US, but it can be found on YouTube.

    Watch this short clip.

    Yes, those are real Soviet T-26 light tanks. Finns evidently never throw anything away.

    If you can, watch the extremely long version that played on Finnish TV.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Why not a biopic of Golda Meir, portrayed by Whoopie Goldberg?

    Think Jewish filmmakers would bankroll that?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Think Jewish filmmakers would bankroll that?

    Yes.

    This particular movie wasn't made by Jews, though.

    ReplyDelete
  4. From IMDB:
    "Hit the newspaper covers in Finland after it was announced the film was shot with a shoestring budget of 20,000 EUR in five days in Kenia with a Kenian actor portraying Marshal Mannerheim."

    Kenyan! Like Obama! Ah, the Kenyan actor's name is Teley Savallas Otieno, and he's bald too...

    However, it doesn't seem to be exactly a realistic biography, perhaps it's some kind of elaborate joke:

    http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Mannerheim+played+by+Kenyan+actor+in+YLE+film+sparking+controversy+well+before+premiere+ADDED+158/1329104622855

    ReplyDelete
  5. Auntie Analogue9/13/12, 3:08 PM

    This Mannerheim bulljive flick brings to mind, quite out of context, mind you, the Randall Jareell line that seems apt, "Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters."

    ReplyDelete
  6. Finland has bigger problems to worry about, such as aids from miscegenation with African students:

    http://irishsavant.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/this-is-at-helsinki-university.html

    ReplyDelete
  7. "The 1989 Finnish movie, "The Winter War" ("Talvisota") is IMHO the best war movie ever made."

    AMBUSH is the greater work. Emotionally devastating.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEQJwlQ1DGM

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anyone done an epic on Pilsudski, who changed European history when he won the Battle of Warsaw?

    ReplyDelete
  9. He be related to the king of scotland?

    ReplyDelete
  10. Well... at least the Finnish don't believed in the '3rd-world immigration uber alles' like the Swedish.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Maybe it's a companion piece to The King of Scotland?

    ReplyDelete
  12. There was supposed to be a big biopic of Mannerheim, directed by Renny Harlin, known for his generally bad action films. That fell through due to funding problems, which was probably for the better. Then the tax-payer-funded Finnish Broadcasting Company announced that they were going to make their own version of Mannerheim, but it turned out to be this joke of a movie, shot in Kenya with a Kenyan cast.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Maybe it's a companion piece to The King of Scotland?

    ReplyDelete
  14. "Why not a biopic of Golda Meir, portrayed by Whoopie Goldberg?"

    I think they should've hired Whoopie Goldberg to portray this Finnish Marshall. Why are male roles always restricted to men?

    ReplyDelete
  15. This is from the Onion right?

    ReplyDelete
  16. I wonder who plays the evil Russians. My guess...evil Russians.

    ReplyDelete
  17. "This is from the Onion right? "

    onion is good but they are not this good.

    ReplyDelete
  18. As long as they get Nina Simone's skin tone right.
    I guess non-conventional casting only works one way.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Steve, you forgot to mention that the movie is funded by the Finnish government. The hatred much of the left has for Mannerheim actually isn't about the Winter War, it dates back to him leading the Whites in the Finnish Civil War (mini version of the Russian Civil War) and taking Finland out of Russia instead of joining the Soviet project.

    America is actually a really strange nation with its universal regard for a set of national heroes. If you ask a random Finn Mannerheim is either the greatest man in history (more likely) or worse than ten Hitlers (less likely but plenty common, especially among "artists" who get funded by the government). It's as if the United States still had a large minority of British loyalists full of hatred for George Washington.

    I guess the crowd that wants to believe that the whole existence of their nation is a crime against humanity channels it all into believing that white people migrating to places other than Europe is an act of evil instead of considering political independence from the mother country the irredeemable original sin of the nation.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Anytime there is a violent flash mob attack in the U.S. I always joke that the Scandanavians are at it again. Well no joke any more. These are the new Scandanavians.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Okay, this is from the new rival of the Onion, right?

    It is hilarious.

    ReplyDelete
  22. If any white dude should be played by a black dude, it be Hitler. The dude could sure scream, holler, and shout.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Pilsudski definitely does need a biopic. The closest we'll get anytime soon is last year's movie The Battle of Warsaw 1920, by Jerzy Hoffman, which has a definite "patriotic" feel to it:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbx5-uGGH0I

    Preview is in Polish but you get the idea (I've seen the film and it's very well done). Pilsudski has a major role, as he did in real life.

    ReplyDelete
  24. "He be related to the king of scotland?"

    Only to the last one.

    ReplyDelete
  25. "The hatred much of the left has for Mannerheim actually isn't about the Winter War, it dates back to him leading the Whites in the Finnish Civil War (mini version of the Russian Civil War) and taking Finland out of Russia instead of joining the Soviet project."

    They're still mad at him?

    ReplyDelete
  26. "If any white dude should be played by a black dude, it be Hitler. The dude could sure scream, holler, and shout."

    The only recording of Hitler speaking in his normal voice is one made of him speaking with Mannerheim.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Auntie Analog - 'bulljive' lol! Ive never come across that term before in my sheltered English existence. I'll be using that whenever possible.

    ReplyDelete
  28. While we're at it, why not substitute 'Danes' (as in Kipling) for 'NAMs'?

    ReplyDelete
  29. Gus Hall, the perennial Communist Party USA candidate for President when I was a kid, was a Finnish Communist.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There aren't many communists in Finland. Probably more Finnish communists Outside of Finland than in.

      Risto

      Delete
  30. Auntie Analogue9/13/12, 5:35 PM

    I apologize for having misspelled Randall Jarrell's surname, an act of admission which distinguishes me from our We Know What's Best For Everyone political class (and its prime enforcer: the DOJ).

    Yes, Anonymous 5:21, "bulljive" - a portmanteau that entered slang around the mid-1960's and enjoyed some currency through, oh, roughly about the middle of the 1970's. I am properly tickled that you like it.

    One more jibe based on the loony negroid cinematic nightmare vision of Marshall Mannerheim: what's next from Finland - Finlandia Dark Vodka? How about Nokia telephones with the phone number of the SPLC pre-programmed into their address lists?

    ReplyDelete
  31. I remember hearing somewhere that leftwing Finns hate Sweden white rightwing Finns hate Russia. That's an even longer time for those leftwingers to hold a grudge than against Mannerheim. Ilkka Kokkarinen of Sixteen Volts/Fourth Checkraise hated Swedes, but he also says he was a lefty in the 90s.

    ReplyDelete
  32. This looks like a variation on Steve's idea that Tyler Perry should have played the Queen in "The King's Speech."



    ReplyDelete
  33. Is this real? What on earth is the point....

    ReplyDelete
  34. "Auntie Analogue said...

    what's next from Finland - Finlandia Dark Vodka?"

    Hennessy has now come out with a new line of cognac - "Hennessey Black" - perhaps targeted at their hip-hop consumers?

    ReplyDelete
  35. I can't wait till the Tuetonic looking Daniel Craig plays Shaka Zulu. That should be a gas.

    ReplyDelete
  36. It's a joke you bunch of queers.....no chance this is real right Steve?

    Steve???


    Dan in DC

    ReplyDelete
  37. The instigator of this film, the one who had the idea for it and brought it to the official producer Erkko Lyytinen, was the young Estonian producer Ken Saan.

    "Lyytinen got the idea for [shooting] the film in Kenya from an Estonian producer Ken Saan. Saan had asked from Lyytinen if he had any project that could be filmed at Kenya. According to Lyytinen, Saan's aspect at the production was a major success of the movie filming. The screenplay was written by a Kenyan work group."
    http://tinyurl.com/8n9o3g6

    Saan is a champion of East African filmmaking, claiming it's dirt cheap to film there. But it sounds like he has more than a monetary agenda.
    http://tinyurl.com/9x78grm

    Saan was also responsible for one serious scandal in Estonian TV. He made a series perverting a classic children's show. His version was so vile it led to an injunction and a legal battle.
    http://tinyurl.com/9oln3nz

    Here are more pics and stories re our Ken.
    http://tinyurl.com/8mvfnf7

    (I recommend Google Translate.)

    Sure, he's a lefty, but let's use our senses and experience, shall we? Don't hold your breath waiting for him and his pals get up the kroons for a Kenyan-cast biopic of any Jewish hero.

    ReplyDelete
  38. Beecher Asbury9/13/12, 9:40 PM

    The hatred much of the left has for Mannerheim actually isn't about the Winter War, it dates back to him leading the Whites in the Finnish Civil War (mini version of the Russian Civil War) and taking Finland out of Russia instead of joining the Soviet project.

    Maybe it has something to do with the fact he wore an Iron Cross.

    It's as if the United States still had a large minority of British loyalists full of hatred for George Washington.

    No, but we do have a large minority of blacks who have been removing George's name from public schools.

    ReplyDelete
  39. Auntie Analogue9/13/12, 9:54 PM

    If I've been had by a bogus negro Mannerheim shtick, then I join in laughing at myself: laughter being a more enjoyable consequence of gullibility than others I've suffered.

    ReplyDelete
  40. They could run it as a double bill with The Last King of Scotland.

    ReplyDelete
  41. So that's what became of Dave Chappelle.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Hunsdon thanks anonydroid at 4:11 pm for the information on Hoffman's new film, Battle of Warsaw 1920. Hoffman has produced excellent work based on Sienkewicz' Trilogy, all, incidentally, featuring Olrbychski (who plays Pilsudski in the new film).

    This is going in the shopping cart next time I'm at Amazon.

    ReplyDelete
  43. "Hoffman has produced excellent work based on Sienkewicz' Trilogy"

    They are decent, not excellent.

    ReplyDelete
  44. "If any white dude should be played by a black dude, it be Hitler. The dude could sure scream, holler, and shout."

    They should get that black dude I used to see at LA wargaming conventions in the 1980s who wore an SS uniform complete with Ritterkreuz.

    ReplyDelete
  45. AMBUSH is the greater work. Emotionally devastating.

    Ambush may be a good movie, but it's not a good WAR movie.

    War movies have lots of machine guns, tanks, airplanes, explosions and dying people. But no girls and definitely no mushy love stories with kissing and stuff. Yuck!


    ReplyDelete
  46. The Monster from Polaris9/14/12, 12:03 PM

    Norville:

    No, though a few of us are. Actually I think the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland leans more toward liberalism (but maybe not toward socialism) than the majority.

    ReplyDelete
  47. So that's what became of Dave Chappelle.

    When I first saw it and saw that guy, I figured at that point it had to be a joke. But no, it's real?

    ReplyDelete
  48. "The only recording of Hitler speaking in his normal voice is one made of him speaking with Mannerheim."

    that's gold, jerry! gold!

    ReplyDelete
  49. Joke? Seriously, what the devil..?

    ReplyDelete
  50. Marshal of Zuwayza, anyone?

    (Harry Turtledove, in one of his alt-history WW2s, had some upside-down magic one in which the Finns were portrayed by a black Arabic-speaking country called Zuwayza.)

    ReplyDelete
  51. No, though a few of us are. Actually I think the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland leans more toward liberalism (but maybe not toward socialism) than the majority.

    According to something I've read, the Swedes in Finland have much the same role Jews do in the USA, as far as liberalism and multiculturalism go.

    ReplyDelete

Comments are moderated, at whim.