This interesting film is based on a true story and the diaries of Aleksanteri Ahola-Valo, the title character. It is set in a place and period I know very little about, Finland when it was part of the Russian Empire prior to World War I.
Valo, roughly 8, and his father are sent to a remote village as a form of internal exile, following a massacre of some demonstrators against the Tsar. Valo immediately meets Ville, a boy his own age who makes his living moving luggage at the train station and picking pockets. He is the son of the local constable, a very abusive drunk.
Soon Valo starts going to school. There is a new teacher this year, and she soon gets up the noses of powerful locals by reading her charges "David Copperfield" (in Finnish). It isn't long before the school is branded as subversive and shut down for good.
By now, Valo has seen considerable disregard for children, not to mention downright brutality and some fairly widespread physical abuse. The closing of the school is the last straw for him---he decides to set up an underground "playschool" run by himself. Attracted by the notion of learning to read (among other things), many children join him, including some who couldn't attend the former school, such as Ville.
Further repression follows.
I had a few problems with the film. One might just be a subtitle difficulty: when Valo asks Ville who the guy is in a sinister black uniform, standing on the top of a huge tower with a pair of binoculars and scrutinizing everything in site---"Him? Oh, he's a secret policeman." O...K... The kids were generally pretty good in the lead roles, but some of the younger peripheral characters may have been a bit over their heads on camera. Also, there seemed to be no children older than about 8 in the village at all, which was a bit strange. Where were all the hulking bullies making life more miserable for everyone? UNICEF appears to have been involved in the production in some fashion.
We see Valo begin his career as a diarist, and in reality he apparently kept it up through a fairly long life (1900-1997). One can only imagine how many fascinating and tragic events this man must have reported over the years...!
Valo, roughly 8, and his father are sent to a remote village as a form of internal exile, following a massacre of some demonstrators against the Tsar. Valo immediately meets Ville, a boy his own age who makes his living moving luggage at the train station and picking pockets. He is the son of the local constable, a very abusive drunk.
Soon Valo starts going to school. There is a new teacher this year, and she soon gets up the noses of powerful locals by reading her charges "David Copperfield" (in Finnish). It isn't long before the school is branded as subversive and shut down for good.
By now, Valo has seen considerable disregard for children, not to mention downright brutality and some fairly widespread physical abuse. The closing of the school is the last straw for him---he decides to set up an underground "playschool" run by himself. Attracted by the notion of learning to read (among other things), many children join him, including some who couldn't attend the former school, such as Ville.
Further repression follows.
I had a few problems with the film. One might just be a subtitle difficulty: when Valo asks Ville who the guy is in a sinister black uniform, standing on the top of a huge tower with a pair of binoculars and scrutinizing everything in site---"Him? Oh, he's a secret policeman." O...K... The kids were generally pretty good in the lead roles, but some of the younger peripheral characters may have been a bit over their heads on camera. Also, there seemed to be no children older than about 8 in the village at all, which was a bit strange. Where were all the hulking bullies making life more miserable for everyone? UNICEF appears to have been involved in the production in some fashion.
We see Valo begin his career as a diarist, and in reality he apparently kept it up through a fairly long life (1900-1997). One can only imagine how many fascinating and tragic events this man must have reported over the years...!
