Borderline

"Border 1918", "Raja 1918", "Granitsa 1918" or "Gränsen 1918" is a Finnish-Russian film with dialogue in at least four different languages.

It's directed by Lauri Törhönen and produced by Jörn Donner. The latter is well-known (or even notorious) in both Finland and Sweden, having tried his hand and virtually everything: working with Ingmar Bergman, showing himself nude, having a terrible TV show with Swedish record company owner Bert Karlsson, even running for office in Finland for the Swedish People's Party (I believe he was elected).

"Raja 1918" is a film supposedly based on real events, the lead character Carl von Munck apparently being based on Donner's father. The plot is set at the Finnish-Soviet border in 1918, immediately after the Finnish Civil War between Whites (conservatives) and Reds (socialists). Munck is a young White officer charged with creating a national border between the two enemy nations Finland and Soviet Russia. The Soviets had supported the loosing Reds in the civil war, and the small border village is still teeming with clandestine Red agitators.

Munck befriends a Russian aristocrat who temporarily works for the Bolsheviks, and falls in love with a local Finnish woman who turns out to be one of the Reds. To make matters worse, scores of refugees attempt to escape Bolshevik rule in Russia, with the anti-Bolshevik Munck (ironically) being ordered to send them back in the name of Realpolitik! I suppose the plot is set during the temporary peace agreement (the Brest-Litovsk Treaty) between the Soviets and Germany, Finland being allied with the Germans.

Are you following? To be honest, "Raja 1918" is extremely chaotic and erratic, more borderline than border. The dialogue in four different languages (Munck being able to speak three of them - Finnish, Swedish and German) makes the whole thing even more bewildering. Before you buy this DVD, make sure it has proper titles!

Most of the film is filled with executions, mock executions and other brutalities, but occasionally it's comical, as when Munck wonders about a "terrible rag" one of his soldiers is putting up at the HQ. The "rag" turns out to be the new national flag of Finland! On a less comical note, the film ends in 1928 with Munck (now a professor) meeting a "shrewd businessman" at a banquet, only to realize that he is one of the former Red agitators from the border. The two men refuse to shake hands, as the Finnish national anthem is played in the background... After the defeat of Germany in World War I, the Whites and the moderate Reds compromised and turned Finland into a parliamentary democracy, but the scars of the Civil War remained for generations.

Overall, however, I can't say I like "Raja 1918". I suppose Donner wanted the film to be chaotic and unpredictable. It's deliberate. "Raja" is not really about Finnish history, but rather deals with the absurdities of war, love and politics. Many of the situations and characters feel awkward and unrealistic. Still, I admit that I didn't like it that way. Hence, only two stars.