The Cuckoo Details

[Highly rated reviewer]

And hidden jewel in the movie world

Autumn 1943: A denunciated Russian soldier, a Finnish sniper abandoned by the Germans and a native Lapp woman struggling to survive are brought together by fate as the war is coming to an end. They all speak different languages, the soldiers are enemies in war as well as rivals for the attention of the woman and and differences in both language and customs lead to mistrust and misunderstandings.

This small character study has an almost stage like feel and as the language difficulties are a central point in the story the subtitles almost take on a new level of importance. The acting is superb and I was particularly impressed by the inventiveness of Ville Haapasalos character.

Although I fear that a small film like this will probably get lost between all the big movies that dominate our cinemas and TV screens I hope that it will find the audience it deserves. You have done the first step by finding this film and after reading this review there should only be one possible outcome: ' Add to selection'

a simple and pleasant little fable

A Russian, a Finn and a Lapp woman are thrown together during the 2nd World war. None of them can speak each others language and each of them tend to see the others behaviour based on their own viewpoints. The film could have been told in half an hour but the director feels the need to go at a slow pace and dwell on the lovely scenery as if to show the insignificance of humans by comparison. The misconceptions do become a little repetitious and personally I think that the mystical sequence detracts from what has gone before and that the story is not as deep as it would like to think it is but its still worth a look. I would also recommend a Lapp film called Pathfinder which is an excellent action film that shows Lapp life from an earlier time.