Kätilö (The Midwife)
2015
**
Director: Antti J. Jokinen
Cast: Krista Kosonen, Lauri Tilkanen, Pirkka-Pekka Petelius, Leea Klemola, Seppo Pääkkönen, Elina Knihtilä, Tommi Korpela, Johannes Brotherus
Towards the end of World War II, when Finland is close to accepting the peace terms set by the Soviet Union, a young Finnish woman who works as a nurse at a German POW camp in Lapland falls in love with an SS officer. This adaptation of Katja Kettu's 2011 novel is visually striking, which is sadly the only positive comment I can make about this laboured effort. Thanks to the confusing and unfocused script and the poorly defined characters, I was not swept along by the drama or the romance at any point. I could also not get over the fact that the characters communicate in Finnish, whether they are Finns, Germans, or Russians.
