Sauna DVD Review
Sauna DVD Review
Sweat your sins.
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Sixteenth century Finland isn't exactly the setting one expects from a horror movie these days. The bowels of a hostel in modern-day Eastern Europe? Sure. An 80s throwback boiler room in Anywhere, USA? OK. A post-apocalyptic Zombieland? Yeah, I'm in.
So when this movie I'd never heard of, Sauna, appeared on my doorstep with the latest deliveries, I didn't even pause to read the back cover copy. At this time of year horror movie reviewers are like Lucille Ball working in the chocolate banana factory: the discs might as well be on a conveyor belt as we struggle to keep up, only with much-less hilarious results. I stuck the DVD into my Playstation and the picture came up. Hm. Sauna looked impressive right from the start, but I was skeptical: Surely the 16th century bit was flashback, and within a few minutes I'd be flash-forwarded to a modern-day Finnish strip club where some devil worshippers are harboring a haunted sauna in the basement and reducing exotic dancers to puddles of goo. But no. Sauna is a real period piece from beginning to end, and what's more it's a real movie!
With tones, shades and elements vaguely yet persistently reminiscent of other bleak cinematic explorations of the human condition (along the lines of Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal, Andrzej Zulawski's Diabel, and even Paco Plaza's Romasanta), Sauna follows brothers — in arms, and by blood — Eerik (Ville Virtanen) and Knut (Tommi Eronen) after the commission of a terrible sin initially divides them… and then unites them in eternity. Iiro Küttner's melancholy script is loaded with heavy subject matter and enough subtext to have Freud, Adler and Jung curdling in their collective coffins.
Looking like a cross between vintage Michael York and today's Guy Pearce, the handsome, questioning younger brother doesn't agree with the ruthless wartime decisions made by the elder, bespectacled Eerik, but he grudgingly goes along. And speaking of The Grudge… there's a little tip of the tresses to that movie in Sauna, too — there's a very angry female ghost, some condensation, and revenge wreaking. But really, my comparisons diminish the originality of Sauna. It's a very well-acted, thought-out, originally-wrought tale of atonement, the supernatural, and the political dynamics of men at war (at war on the grand scale, and within oneself). See it.
Seeing is another subject tackled in this film; those with eye-phobias are likely to be freaked out, but director Antti–Jussi Annilla isn't exactly the next Lucio Fulci. He shatters the windows to the soul in a more sneaky, subtle, surreptitious manner. From the one-eyed warhorse, to Eerik's precious glasses, to a blindfolded child, it's all there if you just look. Numerology is also a theme, with 73 playing a major part in the plot's underlying mysticism.
The DVD presents this gorgeously-shot film in letterbox format to maintain its original 2:35:1 widescreen aspect ratio and for that, I am grateful. Sauna is one of the most beautiful-looking horror films to come out of the Nordic countries lately (Let The Right One In is another, but Sauna has a more organic, old-school film grain look to it in addition to remarkable, deep and rich colors and excellent contrast). I'm not familiar with any of DP Henri Blomberg's other work, but he certainly impressed me here.
Having done all that gushing, I will admit that Sauna is just a little too long and is fairly predictable… still, it's one out of 50 spec DVDs I get sent that I'm actually keeping in my library.
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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson