“Kalevala,” a compilation of epic poetry drawn from Karelian and Finnish folklore and mythology, is full of violence, but director Antti J. Jokinen – who has adapted the book for his film “Kalevala: The Story of Kullervo,” set in the 1100s and centering on the tragic hero Kullervo – has “no interest” in that.
“It won’t be a super violent film. We have fight sequences, the swords are heavy and the actors have been training for a year now. But it’s more interesting to show the impact violence has on people,” he tells Variety.
Jokinen has already dealt with a similar dilemma in “Purge,” taking on human trafficking and sexual cruelty. “I cut out a lot of [the violence] from the original book but its writer Sofi [Oksanen] was adamant: ‘Don’t clean it up too much.’ The violence towards women needed to be shown. This time, I had more freedom, because everyone can interpret ‘Kalevala’ any way they want. These characters are not one-dimensional: these are men who feel. They are not just raping and pillaging.”
“This character is very Shakespearian and his story is like a Greek tragedy. I think the audience is ready for that, because what’s the relationship you have with your parents, biological or adopted? Even if there is a big lie beneath it all, would you opt for revenge?,” he wonders, admitting he won’t change his misadventures “too much.”
“I can’t. It’s the epic of Finland! It’s said that our whole identity comes from it.”
A co-production between Jokinen’s Storm Inc. and Marko Röhr and Johanna Enäsuo’s ReelMedia, the film will be distributed in the Nordics by SF Studios, while REinvent handles sales. It will also mark Jokinen’s return to bigger productions following the 2020 biopic “Helene” about painter Helene Schjerfbeck. Later, he was attached to the thriller “Omerta 6/12” and ultimately replaced by Aku Louhimies.
“With ‘Omerta,’ I was trying to make two movies and a five-episode series, and it just melted me,” he recalls.
“I’d been having health issues and I thought I would make a smaller film next. But I wanted to tell this story. My wife said: ‘This is very big.’ I replied: ‘I can’t find anything else!’ I would be happy to make a franchise out of it. We don’t have that many cultural IPs in Finland and ‘Kalevala’ seems to be one of them. But I will take it one movie at a time.”
The film’s cast includes Elias Salonen, Eero Aho, Ilkka Koivula, Olli Rahkonen, Krista Kosonen and Johannes Holopainen. It will also serve as a showcase for Finnish nature, promises Jokinen. “The whole thing is epic, because Finnish nature is epic. It would be a crime not to show it. Location scouting alone took us one year. Now, we are driving every day for an hour or two, and then the whole crew has to walk for another hour to get to this pure forest nobody has ever shot in.”
Read the entire interview in Variety here.