Tali-Ihantala 1944 (2007)

Directors:

Åke Lindman
Sakari Kirjavainen (co-director)

Writers:

Stefan Forss (written by) and
Benedict Zilliacus (written by)

Release Date:

7 December 2007 (Finland)

Genre:

Action | Drama | War

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Continuation War

Awards:

4 nominations

Cast

Rauno Ahonen	...	Lieutenant Colonel
Mikkomarkus Ahtiainen
Frank Biermann
Jussi Brech
Mikko Bredenberg	...	Captain Carl-Birger Kvikant
Riko Eklundh	...	Colonel Sven Björkman
Marc Gassot	...	Sergeant Reino Lehväslaiho
Marcus Groth	...	Major General Ruben Lagus
Johan Hallström	...	Second Lieutenant Thorbjörnsson
Kari Hevossaari	...	Lieutenant Puhakka
Aku Hirviniemi
Antti Holma
Jani Honkaselkä
Markku Hyvönen	...	Lance Corporal Ville Väisänen
Janne Hyytiäinen	...	Major of Air-force

Also Known As:

Mihin vapaat miehet pystyvät (Finland) (working title)
Tali-Ihantala (Finland) (short title)
Vad fria män vörmå (Finland: Swedish title) (working title)
Slaget om Finland (Sweden) [sv]
Tali-Ihantala - Slaget om Finland (Sweden) [sv]
Tali-Ihantala 1944 - Slaget om Finland (Sweden) [sv]

Runtime:

117 min

Country:

Finland

Language:

Finnish | Swedish | German

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Finland:K-11 | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Finland

Company:

Åke Lindman Film-Productions

Trivia:

Director Åke Lindman got seriously ill during the filming. He let editor Sakari Kirjavainen finish the picture.

Quotes:

[last lines]
Mannerheim: Perhaps I should go to bed.

Soundtrack:

Oi kallis Suomenmaa

Very boring as a movie, and uninformative as a documentary

Being Finnish, it is often difficult to comment on Finnish war movies. Since most Finns have at least an elementary grasp of the timeline and locations of the events, you can understand better what is happening in front of you. This creates a situation where these movies become difficult to follow for other audiences and that's where they usually go wrong.

Let's look at the good sides first. The fact that they actually acquired proper vehicles instead of using CGI was a huge upside. The costumes, the equipment looked pretty good. The inside shots of the vehicles were good. However, all of these upsides were not enough to cover up for the confusing direction and weak screenplay. Yes, I said it, the cat is out of the bag.

The premise is good, and if the director had chosen to go the route of "A Bridge too Far" or "The Longest Day", this movie would have been much better. The greatest flaws were the lack of character development, sense of urgency from the fighting and overall confusion of what was actually happening. These were so bad that you don't even notice the horrible dialogue.

Both of the Hollywood movies I mentioned spent the first hour with character development, and the remainder showing those characters whom you had now developed a connection to, in situations where you as the viewer felt that they were in immediate danger. In T-I, there were no scenes that had the same feeling like Robert Redford paddling across the Nijmegen or the "cricket" scene from TLD.

When shooting a large scale epic like this, the HQ scenes must act as the glue that holds all of the action together and keeps the viewer in the loop for whats actually happening. Instead of the overview maps, I would have preferred to see a mapboard and commanders discussing the situation. Now you just see almost identical maps and it seems like the Russians are not doing anything, and the Finns are mounting some kind of counterattacks somewhere for no particular reason. You can see that around 90 minutes (the radio intelligence scene) they did attempt this for a few minutes, which ended up being the most enjoyable part of the movie. Too bad that the action that unfolded ended up being so anticlimactic.

I really wanted to like this movie, but I felt very disappointed with it in the end. Also, the English subtitles had some annoying missteps evident in too many Finnish DVD productions; incorrect terminology and desperate attempt to make Finns speak UK English, whereas Finns in my experience speak more like Americans with their colorful expressions.

Recommended only for hard core WW2 vehicle buffs. I suggest "Ambush" if you're looking for an actually entertaining movie about this subject.