Director: Klaus Härö
Scripting: Kerstin Johansson i Backe (novel), Jimmy Karlsson, Kjell Sundsedt
Cast: Natalie Minnevik, Bibi Andersson, Marjaana Maijala, Henrik Rafaelsen
Cinema: [EUFF 'o7] Golden Screen Cinema, Mid Valley (14:C7), Dec 15, 2007
2 days upon my homecoming, yesterday during Sunday celebration in church, we watched a short video. Since it was produced and casted by my own church members, I naturally know all of the actors(ress). And so this highly impressed filmmaker-wannabe went chuckling and commenting away on the supposedly very moving story that should have touched the stonest of hearts. My seatmate almost slapped me (:-p).
But there were days when a story became so relevant and intense that it sucked the brains whose hungry eyes cared to lay upon, never allowing me a chance for observational detachment. A storyline so familiar to the history I could recall, yet bringing a fresh new possibility that I failed to risk. I give to you, my newest Swedish Finnish child hero – Elina.
Making Elina
The half withered tree stands in the middle of a wide field. She sits against the thin stem, alone, but her back not hunched, nor head bowed. She sings the tunes, and smells the air she used to smell with her father. She treads the sinky swamp scarcely covered with low flowers, exactly the way her father showed her how to navigate about without sinking into the quick-mud beneath. “Isä…” She calls her father by name.
“Papa……” she continues speaking although it returns no audible response.
“You want to, Elina?”
“I would like to” – She smiles at her own reply.
We could hear her excitement from the leaves ruffling and twigs breaking under her quick and decisive trudging across the woods. Her black boots leading us to the muddy field we have already been introduced to. She looks into the field through clefts of a spread of leafs, her eyes shaded from the morning sun. “Papa, I will be like you.” She determines. “Like you, I will always do the right thing” Her breath escapes as in a quick prayer.
Her mother half walking, half running Elina to school. We are then told the first rule in school…
“Remember you must speak Swedish in school.”
“But daddy spoke to us in Finnish”… as well as Elina’s young passion for whom she knows herself to be.
And oh… students were not allowed to write with their left hand! This teacher snatches Anton’s pencil from his left hand and thrusts it into the right. The same boy, caught speaking in Finnish, was forbidden to take lunch for the day.
Who could have imposed such tyrannical rule other than a highly conceited, self-important, red-dressed control freak, and her supremacy – the head teacher?
It is this very Ms. Holm that Elina’s young passion is publicly risked against.
“How could anybody learn if he wasn’t allowed to ask questions?”
“He spoke in Finnish, and you know the rules”“He doesn’t know how to speak Swedish”
“That’s what you’re here to learn”“He was just asking me a question”
“And who here is the teacher?”“But you don’t speak Finnish, that’s why he asked me. In that case, I shouldn’t be eating lunch as well.”
The Right Thing
Warm steamy chick pea soup bids every pupil a good lunch. Only Anton whose palate could taste no pea his nose could smell. A bowl of untouched soup waited beneath Elina’s thoughtful head, occupied in some calculations, maybe about where the chick peas would be more happy to be at. She decided it’s Anton’s belly.
Seeing a defiant plate wandering to redeem Anton from his hunger, Holm had to uphold her punishment and to mend her injured highness:
“You shall sit here until you finish your soup.”
That’s exactly what Elina did, minus the finishing part. The basin took it.
Apparent in many forms of physical or verbal duels, it is never enough to gain advances by making the good hits, it always seems much more justified to advance, and cause your opponent to twitch, scream and cry for mercy under your feet; like dogfights. We shall see this is what Holm very much desire to do, believing so well that Elina is doomed to comply.
The Right Thing, Regardless…
The deeper I went into the rabbit hole, without being aware of it, I began pulling myself into the skin of Elina; as if my soul discovered someone that it could understand, someone it could trust. Her small stature carries such a huge reservoir of dignity and respect; so strong a belief of humanity…
I had to secretly applaud her when she walked out of the lunch hall the next day, while Holm was attempting an insult devised upon her dead father, and her terribly poor family; secreting every sarcasm needed to remind Elina of her pitiful life, which needed the patronizing education Holm is giving, or so she thinks. Elina’s self-respect rises above such bullying.
Now, it’s pretty natural for us to be curious: What’s so admirable about a kid being stubborn? What’s so difficult about that? Then I must say that it’s actually not that easy to be “stubborn” when people around you pick the cold eyes at you if you were not joining the public act. Consider the things that went against Elina’s effort to be stubborn:
She knows her own poverty, she knows her own health issues, she definitely knows hunger when she feels it. Her classmates never spoke a word of support, and their giggles don’t help either. A few times Holm attempted to seduce her into “apologizing”, promising Elina her approval as an authority, luring her to make a “fresh start”. And as we have mentioned, it’s not enough to just make good points, more so if your points weren’t taken. Holm promoted her tactics to include dirty tricks of emotional manipulation, intentionally pretending Elina to be inexistent regardless of her intelligence.
At the face of an adult tyrant, maybe very alike a bloody eyed, pot belly-ed, long tailed, flame spitting monster for some kids, Elina holds on to her voice, not relenting to even friendly plea’s to give in and “just move on”; because she knows what to her meant victory, what defeat. She, in her own young mind sees the importance of defending compassion, and basic respect of other human beings; and ultimately, truthfulness to herself even when no one else thinks her behavior legitimate. And she is only 9 years old.
That was the very spirit my soul was unable to come to 15 years ago.
• • • • •
Wrongfully Accused
This episode warped me through my timeline, pushing me back to when I was 7 years old: stood in my terrified miniature-ness, enwrapped with an inescapable trap of injustice, threatened to be punished for wrongs I did not even know about…
After some minutes of threats and unrevealing “interrogations”:
“Was it you?”
(shook my head, jittering with fear, already tearing)“You were the only one who went upstairs, you still deny?”
(speechless, paralyzed by not knowing what to do)“Did you do it?”
(still shaking my head)
“Mary*, did she do it” (to which Mary “testified” my deed with much conviction)
“You still deny?? I’ll ask you again, did you do it?”
(by this time, the only thing I knew they want, is for me to nod my head, so I3 strong canings on my palm
nodded)
“Why did you do it?”
(For goodness’ sake, how do I even know why if I didn’t do it, I thought silently. I shook my head again… this time, taken as another denial)“Was it you?” (venomous tongue and the metal ruler waved in front f my face)
(I nodded hesitantly with great violation in my heart, hating myself for not being able to breakthrough mere lies despite my own innocence. Hating the “witness”, hating the unverified guesses and false reasoning, hating dirty threats to put me to unjustified defeat, hating the audience who rejoiced at my helpless confession.)
More canes made their mark on my hand and in my heart…
Finishing the Business
Watching Elina sort of provided me a new kind of courage to question what happened 15 years before. I borrowed her strength to imagine myself holding onto truth when the whole house believed I was to be punished. Elina showed me that truth and humanity can be upheld regardless of physical age or size. Thank God for revealing to me that shells and shackles cannot bind me forever; that as He lovingly gives me His strength, fear, disillusionment, and stronghold crumble and be dispersed in the victorious wind of the Holy Spirit.
