Road to oblivion

 

Credit: Nordisk Film 

“The Eternal Road” is a somewhat peculiar film produced in Finland and Estonia, with dialogue in both Finnish and English. It´s supposedly based on a true story, but that seems highly unlikely. According to all-knowing Wiki, it´s based on a novel, and I suspect the story is “generic”.

The main character, Jussi Ketola, is a Finnish socialist who manages to escape a fascist death squad by running across the border to the Soviet Union, at the time governed by Stalin´s increasingly repressive regime. Since Ketola (against his will) worked for the anti-Communist Whites during the Finnish Civil War, the exiled Finnish Communists in the Soviet Union suspect him of being a capitalist spy…or at least pretend to think so. Ketola is forced to spy for the Soviet GPU instead, who wants to keep tabs on a Christian utopian commune established by American immigrants somewhere in Soviet Karelia.

The Finnish socialist (who speaks good English after working for a period in the United States) rather opts to become a member of the commune. It´s even implied that he converts to the weird Mennonite-type Christianity practiced by the expatriates. Naturally, the Americans are accused of being foreign agents during Stalin´s great purges, and many are executed at the hands of the GPU. For unclear reasons, Ketola is saved at the last moment by Kallonen (his GPU “control”) and later manages to escape back to Finland. The story ends with Ketola´s step daughter, who somehow managed to survive the Stalin years, telling his story.

The first part of “The Eternal Road” comes across almost as an absurd comedy, with the Finnish Communists in Petrozavodsk turning out to be dandified and more interested in partying with the ladies than in class struggle. As already noted, the American Christian socialists (how did they end up in Stalin´s Russia?) look like the Amish, while Ketola jokes with Kallonen, telling him that he is indeed surveilling the local hog, who looks distinctly suspicious. The second part is more tragic, but it´s hardly a surprise that most of the idealist socialists are deported or shot. Indeed, what *is* strange is that Ketola manages to escape through the border zone!

During the Stalin years, tens of thousands of foreign workers did immigrate to the Soviet Union to escape the Great Depression at home, or in some cases to help the Soviet peoples “build socialism”. Many were caught up in the purges. That – and the conflicts between Communists and Whites in Finland – form the backdrops to “The Eternal Road”. I can´t say I was *that* thrilled by this production, but I suppose it could be of some interest to an extreme niche audience…