The Year 1939

Helsinki was scheduled to host the 1940 Summer Olympics, which didn’t happen, for historical reasons well known. 1939 was a year of anticipation – but of what exactly? Judging by the year’s key films, a violent clash with the neighbouring leviathan, the USSR, was as much in the air as track-and-field glory. When the Winter War broke out on November 30th, the ambiguous waiting ended.
In its utter, almost absurd schizophrenia, The Year 1939 is an exemplary reconstruction of an historical turning point. Time and again, the images and the remembered stories, the songs and the faces of actors, politicians and millions like us, just refuse to add up to a vision that is whole and clear – here, something is always askew. History is the abyss staring back, and looking none too happy. A profound meditation on doubt and sorrow.