Täällä Pohjantähden alla

If the action seems a trifle hectic early on, it's probably because an hour was trimmed for British release. But only a masochist would demand the full version of this lumbering Finnish family chronicle derived from a famous trilogy by Väinö Linna, detailing the break-up of feudal society early in the century and the farmers' fight for socialism. This dinosaur of a film played in Finland as a television serial, as well as being carved up into two features for cinema release; and the television influence shows in the relentless artificial lighting, the cramped compositions which hinder Laine's attempt to achieve an epic sweep. Occasional scenes are pretty in a picture postcard way (workers marching through snow shouting the national anthem), but it's all laboriously unreal and unimaginative.