Flame Top

Finnish epic about a celebrated national hero, Maiju Lassila: novelist, revolutionary and wealthy businessman. From his poor, rural childhood, through his arrival in St Petersburg in 1900, his success as a writer, his exile in the Finnish forests, and his eventual imprisonment and death, the film charts Lassila's political development - his terrorist activities against the Russians, and his part in the 1918 Finnish Civil War. Shot on location not only in Finland but also in Leningrad, the film is well-crafted and authentic, but the slow pace and broodingly melancholic atmosphere make it generally heavy-going.