SF – Paraati

An x-ray of Finland in 1939. The story’s simple: singing cabby meets singing tourist guide in a blindingly white and sunny Northern capital. The subtext is more complex: there’s unemployment, authoritarianism, a nation in all kinds of uniforms rattled by a certain sense of general unrest – something is going to happen. That ‘something’ should have been the Helsinki Olympics – instead, it became the Winter War. To make things even more interesting: although this axiomatic musical comedy (the songs in which by now are part of Finnish pop-cultural DNA) was shot before the outbreak of war, it got released only afterwards – which makes one wonder how certain lines played then.
A must-see for every Von Bagh-ian, as this is one of the films he quotes most often throughout his oeuvre. Besides, as the first revue film in Finland, it’s a mighty fine example of assembly-line art.