Died upon the gallows

The most cringe-inducing aspects of this film adaptation of the Finnish national epic, Kalevala, are its heavy-handed pathos, the over-dramatic music that drowns out the dialogue, and the performance of Elias Salonen as Kullervo. What makes the film a chore to watch, however, is that it is excruciatingly dull. Naturally, the director (Antti J. Jokinen) must bear the blame for this; while the visuals work at times, the storytelling falters. This film simply should not have been made. Around the one-hour mark, a white car can be seen driving along the opposite shore of the lake—a detail that inevitably undermines the credibility of a story set in ancient times.