Sauna
(2008) 83 Min.
Rated: NR (Nudity, gore)
Country: Finland
Director: Antti-Jussi Annila (as AJ Annila)
Starring: Ville Virtanen, Tommi Eronen
Links: IMDB | Wikipedia
Rating: ★★★★☆
Cartography, guilt, and a foreboding swamp set the stage for this creepy historical horror movie.
Synopsis:
In 1595, after the Russo-Swedish War between Sweden and Russia, brothers Knut (Eronen) and Erik (Virtanen) are together travelling and marking the border between Finland and Russia.
The film begins with Erik stabbing a man because he believed the man had a hidden ax. Knut, the younger brother, does as his older brother says. Knut tells Erik that he put the stabbed man’s daughter in the cellar. Erik promises that he’ll let her out and tells Knut to hurry along to the beach.
Erik and Knut meet up with the troupe of Russians with whom they are to mark out the border. As Knut asks a man to pledge his allegiance to the kings of Sweden and Russia, his mind thinks of the young girl who he left in the cellar. And faintly he can hear the words “come back”.
The men must trek across the Suuri swamp land. Baron Semenski, leader of the Russians, isn’t so keen on going completely through the swamp and would rather just mark it completely in half. Erik, however, argues that if he does not want to go through the swamp, then they could just mark the swamp for Sweden. They send their horses with a man around the swamp and go on foot. It’s a journey that should take two days at the latest.
While they walk, Knut hears a whisper of “Come back”. There is a flashback of when they stayed at the house of the man and his daughter. Erik accuses the man of hiding his religious icons he used to have under the influence of the Russians. Erik demands their winter food. Knut tries to smooth things over and promises that they will leave a receipt for the overseer that the commission confiscated. The man, understandably, is disbelief.
Erik escorts the man out of the cellar roughly. The girl is alone with Knut. He tells her they’ve endured a lot through the war and are far from home. He leans in as if to kiss her and she covers her face in fear. Knut tells her that Erik is unpredictable and that it would be safer if she was in the cellar, so he shuts her inside despite her cries.
She calls out “no, don’t leave me here!”, but instead he ignores her and walks off. The flashback ends here.
While walking through the swamp, Knut’s compass has stopped working. It’s needle spins randomly. He looks off in the distance and sees what looks like a lady standing in the field. As he walks, the figure, still with it’s back to him, seems to get closer suddenly.
Knut asks his brother if he can see the figure, but Erik says he can’t see that far. Knut says he thinks the daughter is following them secretly and asks Eerik what she said when he released her. Erik tells Knut to forget about it and that they were traitors.
Semenski spots a dead wolf in some swamp water and Knut takes a look at the animal. It has no eyes and he remarks that it seems like the animal scratched out its own eyes.
While the group continue to travel, a gust of wind blows around Knut’s maps. He gathers them up and as he reaches for a page, he sees a pair of chalky dirty feet. He looks up to see a pale creature with a blackness where a face would be. It asks “What happened to me?”
Knut runs away and falls down a slope. He is saved by one of the Russian men.
Knut tells Erik that he saw the girl up close. Erik tells him that she cannot be the same girl and admits that he never returned to the cellar to release her. Knut wants to go back, but Erik convinces him that they cannot turn back now and the Russians will not allow for it.
As they move on Knut spots a large white building alone in the middle of a wet marshy area. It’s a sauna, but no one is supposed to live out here.
Erik spots a village and the men enter it. The villagers tell the men that they are located in exactly the middle of the swamp.
As Knut washes in a small pond, Erik washes his face and talks to Knut how the war is all he’s ever known and that he’s killed 37 people. A young girl’s life would make no difference. Knut reminds Erik that he killed the girl’s father and Erik laughs and says that he defended them from the man.
When Knut, Erik and the team meet with the village elders, they are told that the entire village has 37 people entirely.
There is only one youngster in the village and Erik promises to take him along if he tells them how long the village has existed. So the boy takes them to an old building. It contains a book of documents in Russian.
They take one of the older village men and try to have him confess what all the documents are.
The man says that he knows nothing of the documents and that they found the village as it was in the middle of the swamp. He mentions that all the people found were piled cowls. Knut asks who took the original villagers. A voice whispers back “it’s me”. The man can be heard screaming inside the hut. Erik breaks down the door, but the old man his dead. Erik then decides to burn down the hut to hide the body.
Knut says that they are cursed now because Erik did not let the girl out of the cellar, but Erik asks him why Knut put her in there. Knut says to protect her from Erik, but Erik counters that it was Knut who lusted after the girl and wanted to rape her. That such a secret was locked away down in the cellar and it isn’t worth letting that out. Knut is left silent and in tears.
The villagers rush out in panic and one of them asks where their daughter is. It seems that the young boy who helped them earlier is a girl who dresses as a boy.
Knut tries to find Semenski but is found by a dark figure which puts a tooth into his mouth. Suddenly Semenski is there with him. Knut spits out the tooth and tells Semenski that they found a document and want translation.
The next day the elders and the travelers consider using the sauna as a border mark. The village elder decides to take them to a infirmary. There he explains that no one has really lived since being at the village. The girl was the last child to be born and she was born just before they reached this village. Erik remarks that bathing a newborn and the deceased in a sauna is a superstition. It washes away the past and old sins. Erik sees a man who had dug out his own eyes after chewing out his own tongue.
Knut finds one of the Russians dead among scattered paper. Semenski tries to sort it out saying that he used his own blood as ink. In the letters the Russian man thinks he is trapped in the cellar and drinks his own blood out of fear.
Later in a field Semenski shares that there was an old church built near the sauna and that the monks believed the sauna could forgive their sins. The monks believed that it may not even be a sauna.
Erik shares with the infirmary nurse how his family believed his younger brother Knut was the glimmer of light in their family because of his education.
Knut takes a torch and decides to enter the sauna.
As he searches inside the sauna he finds a woman covering her face. “You should have returned,” she says. She reveals her face to be a black mass of liquid. “Is it too late now?” asks Knut as she screams and attacks him.
Erik goes into the water angrily telling the water that he knows how many of them there are and to attack him. He screams that he can save somebody. Later in that day as he’s about to sleep he sees Knut, with his back turned, sitting on a book. Erik tells Knut that perhaps they can go back for the girl in the cellar, but that it may be too late for her. Knut responds with 74. Erik nods and goes to sleep.
The next day Erik and Semenski meet. Semenski decides that it would be best for Russia if Sweden were to take ownership of the entire section of swamp. They sign the documents. Erik returns to the hut he shared with Knut and looks through the book that Knut was sitting on last night. Between a few pages a piece of skin is laid out like leather. It bears a distinctive birthmark that was Knut’s. Erik realizes that it was Knut’s skin. He notices it looks like the number 75. Erik wanders the village and finds nothing by clothing from the villagers in small piles.
Semenski tells the last Russian that in the letters of the other dead Russian he said he regretted not killing the others in the group and that today was the day even God would not want to see. After hearing this Semenski’s assistant stabs him in the back, killing him.
Erik finds the young girl under some clothing hidden. She tells him that “it” takes everything with it to the sauna. Erik goes to where Semenski’s hut is and writes in the Swedish contract that the land belongs to Russia so that neither side will ever enter the swamp. Erik instructs the girl to run north to exit the swamp and to meet up with their horses. He gives her both contracts. He plans to distract the spirit as the girl gets away. He digs a hole in the floor under the wall and lets her out.
Erik then sheds his clothing and walks towards the sauna, ready to meet his fate.
He enters the sauna and is bathed by a figure. It says it has something to show him. Erik says he is sorry and that he’s ready. The figure then grabs his face and black liquid pours out. It’s a figure of Knut that kills Erik.
Meanwhile, the young girl tries to escape as snow starts to fall. She sees the frozen dead body of the last Russian soldier and tries to move past, but he is faceless and attacks her, killing her near the river. Her satchel with the documents flows down the river. And this satchel is picked up by the man waiting with the horses.
Review:
Well, this film has it all. On the surface it can be seen as a vengeful ghost story. A simple tale of horror, but at it also explores themes of war, betrayal, remorse, redemption. It even explores the complex relationship of the two brothers, Erik and Knut and how they held places in their own family. The pride they take in their country and fighting for their side in the war, as well as the justification for the murder of innocents. It blends historical drama and horror very well.
The pacing of the story is slow, but it never falters or loses interest. Things keep building and it may even take a few viewings to really capture entirely what went on during the film as it plays in a cycle and also is told in flashback at times.
I can say that this film is not for everyone. It isn’t very shocking or overly gory. Instead it tries to tell a story of two brothers and how their past catches up with them in a ghostly village.