Sisu is a “see it to believe it” kind of movie, but hopes are high this interview with director Jalmari Helander and the cast will offer up a clear sense of how above and beyond they went with this delightfully bonkers and wildly gory action epic.
The story is set in the late stages of the Lapland War. Finland fought for months to remove German troops from the region, but then in April 1945, Nazi Germany embraced a scorched earth policy, decimating the region. That’s where we find Aatami (Jorma Tommila), a former Finnish soldier looking for gold in the Nazi-occupied wilderness of Lapland. After finding some, he sets off to take it to the city, but when a group of Nazi soldiers led by Aksel Hennie’s Obersturmführer Bruno Helldorf attempt to take it from him, Aatami will stop at nothing to protect what he’s worked for — even if it means killing every last one of them in the most gloriously violent ways imaginable.
While celebrating the Sisu world premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, Helander, Hennie, Jack Doolan who plays Bruno’s right-hand man, and Mimosa Willamo who plays one of their war prisoners all visited the Collider Supper Suite and Media Studio at Marbl to talk about their experience bringing this blood-soaked spectacle to screen.
Again, while I can sing Sisu’s praises all day long, no description or heavy acclaim will do the full experience justice, so it didn’t come as much of a surprise with Hennie admitted that after his first read of the script, he wasn’t quite sure if the film would work.
“When I read the script the first time I couldn't figure out if this movie's gonna be fantastic or shit because the script was so crazy. So I asked my agents to get a conversation with Jalmari to see if I believed him to be the right director for this crazy script. Two seconds into this conversation, I fell in love with Jalmari and the project. There was no turning back. I so wanted to do it. I'd play any part in that movie just to be a part of the project.”
It’s a good thing Hennie hit that level of enthusiasm after chatting with Helander because the Sisu cast had their work cut out for them filming in the mountains of Lapland. When asked for the single greatest challenge of the shoot, Doolan couldn’t narrow it down to just one thing. “Shooting up in the mountains of Lapland in -20 [degrees] with 40 mph winds and snow and dirt, tank noise, and Jalmari very kindly made me shirtless for the first half of the movie.” However, similar to Hennie, faith in Helander was just the inspiration he needed to power through it. He continued, “Reading the script for the first time, because there's so little dialogue throughout, it's kind of like reading a novella. It was like reading an amazing short story. And then to get up there and Jalmari’s so precise that everything described in that script is on screen and it's just incredible.”
Helander’s ability to bring things to screen the precise way he envisions them was a popular topic of conversation during the interview. Hennie recalled:
“When I arrived [on] set three days after they started shooting, I called Jalmari and I said, ‘How do you feel? How's it going? How do you feel?’ These are his exact words, 'I feel like a man making an historical masterpiece.’ [Laughs] And that is Jalmari and that is how he is! And when you come on set, he knows exactly what he wants and how he wants it done and made. It does not mean that he doesn't listen to his actors because he’s a super great listener, really, really good director, but it's inspiring to be a part of a set where the director has so much control over his vision and his visuals and his storytelling and his narrative.”
Given how much emphasis had been placed on Helander’s ability to achieve his goals on set, I had to ask him for a day during production when something didn’t go according to plan and he was forced to pivot. Helander immediately replied, “That almost never happens because if I have a plan on how to do it and I know where I'm gonna do it, it usually goes like it should.” However, eventually Helander did admit, “The horses, actually. That was like living hell with the horses. Like, what the f*ck, going all over the place, and then we had to have some different ideas [for] how to pull it off, but that was crazy.”
As for Helander’s Sisu star, he turned to frequent collaborator Jorma Tommila, but Helander had to make one specific concession in order to convince Tommila to take on such a physical film. “I promised him that he can wear the jacket, which wasn't the original plan because it was so windy and cold. My plan was not to have an orange jacket for Aatami. I still regret it a little bit.” Helander continued, “He's a tough guy. He really is. All the shit he came through on this film, he was in really weird places.”
Need more proof that team Sisu had to go to the extreme to get this film made? Doolan revealed, “We had a bit of a mantra on set, which I take a little bit of credit for introducing, which was, pain is temporary, film is forever.”
Yes, Sisu is a gloriously violent epic with one expertly crafted gore-filled set piece after the next, but Hennie also took a moment to address what the gold and the lengths Aatami is willing to go to for it really represents:
“At the end of the day, the story is not about the gold. The gold starts it. It's about a man working for something for a very long time, hard to get it, and somebody steals it. They don't steal his gold, they steal his dignity, they steal his pride. And so the object is gold, but the theme of the film, I feel, is about humanity. It's about self-respect. It's about revenge. It’s about dignity, and it's about pride, and it's about blowing up Nazis.”
Eager to hear more from the team behind Sisu? You can watch our full 20-minute interview at the top of this article!
Special thanks to our TIFF 2022 partners A-list Communications, Belvedere Vodka, Marbl Toronto, COVERGIRL Canada, Tres Amici Wines, Toronto Star, and Blue Moon Belgian White beer.