Man in the Shadows

Otto Wille Kuusinen remains among the most disputed characters in Finnish history. He was one of the young nation’s leading Communists, turned traitor to his people by selling out to Stalin, and until he died remained a powerful man – as a member of the USSR’s Politburo, among other things – who was so afraid of power that he did everything he could to protect those close to him from its wrath. That he was known for being vengeful and unforgiving is but the coin’s flip-side. As a man of contradictions, Kuusinen is as much an enigma as he an archetype of the 20th-century man. Man in the Shadows is a prime example of serious, investigative political filmmaking – with an uncommon philosophical edge.