Valentin Vaala – Linnaisten vihreä kamari AKA The Green Chamber of Linnais (1945)

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A Gothic romance directed by Valentin Vaala, based on a 1880 novella by Zachris Topelius.

Peter von Bagh’s essay on the film from Suomalaisen elokuvan kultainen kirja (“The Golden Book of Finnish Cinema”, 1992), with some additions:

Zachris Topelius’s romantic novelette from 1859 – practically a forerunner of the modern detective novel – was the source material for a costume drama produced by Suomi-Filmi for nearly four years in the exceptional conditions of Finland’s Continuation War (1941–44). There was a clear social call for this film, which [like Marcel Carné’s Les Enfants du paradis, released the same year] was set some hundred years in the past, in the 1840s. The story of an ancient family castle, its secrets and ghosts, fascinated the critics of the time as much as it did the public. “A romantic mist enshrouds the inhabitants of the noble castle and their guests – a charming, idyllic view of ages past, enhanced by the excellent set design by Roy and the splendid costumes typical for that time”, wrote one of them.

During his long career, Valentin Vaala made only a few historical films, but this film – just like the earlier Man from Sysmä (1938) – is a work that clearly bears his handprint. The star of the film is not History with a capital H, as in other similarly grandiose productions made by the same studio at that time, but rather small enchanting details that bring the past to the present: the sleigh ride of Kaarle Lithau (Rauli Tuomi) and Ringa Littow (Kaija Rahola), other rides through the night, the candelabras, history glowing romantically in candlelight. Rauli Tuomi was an actor whose brief and fervent career as a film star was launched by his portrayal in this movie of the mysterious architect Kaarle Lithau.

Vaala’s directorial touches are at their purest in the long sequences without much action, just shots of Lithau wandering around and searching for something. For whole minutes, all we have on the screen is the actor, the effects of light and sound, the ghostly presence of objects, and amidst all that also loneliness and the mystery of one’s own self: “In order to forget, a man needs to be either very happy or very unhappy – and I don’t know which one I am.”

One of the most important relationships in the movie is that between the two Littow sisters, of whom the older, Anna (Regina Linnanheimo), becomes more and more violent in her tendency to dominate her younger sister, Ringa, who in the end has to give up her love. As Lithau puts it, Ringa “loves her sister more than she does me”. The sisters’ relationship is characterized by many of the dominant themes of the war years – community, sacrifice, unselfishness – but it’s not without some erotic elements, too. Some of the shots, like a long tracking shot towards one of the beds of the mansion, have a subtle eroticism about them not far removed from such classics of the same time as The Cat People by Jacques Tourneur.

What other elements make The Green Chamber of Linnais a film of its time? (The film had its premiere on 4 February 1945, just five months after World War II ended for Finland.) One detail worth adding is the abundance of food and the joy of eating depicted in the film, a distant memory for most Finns, who were still dealing with the strict wartime ratios. And also the last line of the film, accompanied by a kiss: “The past is no longer, there is only a happy future.” A wish that would surely have struck a chord in the audiences of that time.

Linnaisten.vihrea.kamari.1945.WEB-DL.1080p.x264.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 38 min
Size: 	2.03 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1480x1080 
Aspect ratio:  	1.370
Frame rate: 	24.000 fps
Bit rate: 	2 696 kb/s
BPP: 	0.070
Audio
#1:  	2.0ch AAC @ 253 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/13E91D6864C2E9D/Linnaisten.vihrea.kamari.1945.WEB-DL.1080p.x264.mkv

Language(s):Finnish
Subtitles:English

The post Valentin Vaala – Linnaisten vihreä kamari AKA The Green Chamber of Linnais (1945) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

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Valentin Vaala – Linnaisten vihreä kamari AKA The Green Chamber of Linnais (1945)

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