Sauna
What:
Sauna
Where:
Out now on DVD through Madman
Watch the trailer:
Here
Win:
Thanks to Madman, we have 2 DVDs to give away! To enter, email win@fourthousand.com.au with the subject ‘It only looks like a sauna, because we do not know what it is'
Packed with symbolism and almost unbearable tension, this Finnish horror film doesn't confuse atonement with redemption. In 1595, after a 25-year war between Russia and Sweden, two brothers, veteran soldier Eerik (Ville Virtanen) and sheltered geography professor Knut (Tommi Eronen), join a border delegation sent to divide Finland between the two nations.
But the brothers share a dark secret: days earlier, Eerik brutally murdered a farmer while Knut abandoned the farmer's daughter in a locked cellar. As the delegation enters an eerie swamp, Knut begins to be plagued with Grudge-style visions of the girl. When they reach a mysterious sauna that the local villagers are too afraid to use, the brothers realise that only here can they wash away their sins.
Sauna's bleak, evocative cinematography reminded me of Van Diemen's Land, another cinematic meditation on sin. Its motifs are complex and clever: water acts as both cleanser of filth and portal to hell, and eyes are symbols for witnessing evil. Unusually for the time, Eerik wears glasses. "They almost make you look like a civilised man," jibes one character. It's an elegant metaphor for Eerik's inability to see his own guilt... until it's too late.
Format: DVD
Mood: Gulp
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