A new harbor pilot from a Finnish archipelago has been in love with the girl-next-island since he was a boy but everything gets turned upside down when a summer vacationer tries to woo her away. Brooding, chaos and a murder attempt ensue.
Home Media Availability: Stream on Elonet.
Tourists, man. Tourists.
When you watch enough movies of a similar type, you soon find yourself unexpectedly following careers. In this case, Joel Rinne is a beloved star of Finnish film primarily remembered for his enjoyable turn as the rumpled, cigar-smoking Inspector Palmu in the 1960s, the first mystery in the series being particularly revered. (It is very good, you can watch it here.)
However, I first ran into Rinne as a fixture in numerous Finnish silent and part-talkie films made thirty years prior in which he played the handsome young hunk. Burglary, The Old Baron of Rautakylä, In Adam’s Dress and a Little in Eve’s Too… I discovered I had accidentally embarked on a Joel Rinne filmography project, so I decided to make it intentional and try to watch as many of his films as possible. Why not? I like him and it’s fun to see an actor’s evolution from hunk to grand old man of the movies.
The Young Pilot was made near the end of the silent era, when Rinne’s career was really starting to pick up and he was a full lead in pictures rather than a supporting player. It’s a Suomi-Filmi production directed by the durable Erkki Karu, one of the company’s founders. It was (“loosely” per the film’s credits) based on a 1904 play by Yrjö Veijola. I am not sure of the contents of the original material but on the screen, it was the kind of throbbing melodrama of sexual jealousy that was wildly popular worldwide.
The film opens with Annikki (Lillan Järnefelt) and Eero (Rinne), childhood sweethearts, preparing for the arrival of summer tourists on their island home. Annikki’s mother rents lodgings to visitors and Eero has just become a harbor pilot. This is a position of responsibility as he is expected to board incoming ships and assist their crew in sailing through the chain of islands that make up the archipelago. He must also take regular shifts in the island’s lighthouse.
Annikki and Eero play tag, he manages to catch her and then tells her that he wants to make good on his childhood promise to marry her. Meanwhile, guests have arrived on the island, an artist named Viklund (Sven Hilden) and his friend, a student named Kanerva (Paavo Costiander).
Viklund immediately sets his sights on Annikki, in spite of knowing that she is involved with Eero, bragging to Kanerva that he will get her to model for him (and implying even more). Kanerva warns him not to get involved with the locals as they are conservative and will not take kindly.
Kanerva is right, of course, and Eero is terribly jealous of the attention that Viklund is showing to Annikki. She swings between being nervously flattered and fearful as Viklund becomes more aggressive, even chasing her at one point, but consents to modeling for a painting. What could be the harm? Eero is stuck with lighthouse duty and can only stew.
Akseli (Toivo Suonpää), a fellow pilot, doesn’t help matters. His own fiancee betrayed him years before, marrying another and having a child while he was out to sea, and he is sure that Annikki will do the same to Eero. He carries tales of Viklund’s flirtation back to Eero, which only adds fuel to the fire.
After a long shift at his work, Eero sees Viklund painting Annikki’s portrait. He takes a rowboat and rows around the sea reciting death poems (heavy metal bands having not yet been invented) and it looks very much like he might do something drastic. He returns to shore at last and kicks Viklund’s easel, sending the canvas flying, before storming back to the lighthouse.
Viklund, who has treated Eero contemptuously since his arrival, is furious. Later, he lures Annikki into a boat and rows her to a remote island. She objects but he tells her he has to finish his portrait of her. He becomes more and more handsy during the sitting, finally attacking her and chasing her around the island in a dark version of the playful tag she enjoyed with Eero.
In the lighthouse, Eero sees everything. If there’s one thing I know about lighthouses from the movies, it’s that you can’t just leave them. Eero has several moments of agony (Rinne goes slightly arm-flailing in these scenes) before bursting out and commandeering a motorboat. This will not end well.
The Young Pilot is part of a silent era tradition of, and I say this with affection, trash melodrama. Everyone involved is extremely foolish and matters that should have been referred to the police are instead brushed aside for the romantic clutch in the end. I know it’s not realistic, silent era audiences knew it was not realistic, the people making these films knew they were not realistic, they were designed as a bit of escapism of a very particular flavor and I enjoy them a lot.
So, this is very much a Your Mileage May Vary picture. I understand what they were trying to do, appreciate it and applaud it. It is very much my thing. Someone who prefers a logical and realistic story is going to be annoyed by the archipelago antics these characters get up to. Would I want a young goof like Eero piloting my ship ashore? Absolutely not. But I was very much caught up in his cinematic antics and the film’s comparatively-hefty-for-the-era one hour and forty-four minute runtime flew by.
This is a film that runs on ambiguity as well as heightened emotions, at least to a certain extent. Is Akseli just bitter and projecting his heartbreak onto everyone or does he have a more sinister motive and is playing Iago to Eero’s Othello? Is Annikki even momentarily considering cheating on her longtime love or is she just naively impressed with the worldly Viklund? We all know Viklund is a stinker, there’s no question of that, but will this conflict end in murder? While the film is very much in the romantic melodrama mold, I enjoyed its fresh-to-me take as a non-Hollywood production.
Joel Rinne portrays angry jealousy very well. He carries on a bit during the climactic lighthouse scene but generally sticks to brooding and angry boat-rowing, which works rather well. Sven Hilden comes off as remarkably sleazy in his roué role but I think that was rather the idea. I liked Toivo Suonpää as the “is he light comedy relief or is he just a bit sinister?” Akseli.
As far as Lillan Järnefelt’s Annikki… I would have preferred more scenes with her, perhaps showing her mulling over her very long romance with Eero and wondering whether she is just marrying him because he is there or showing that she was humoring Viklund as a paying guest. (The latter can be guessed from context but I would have liked to see her reaction.) I think it would have strengthened the romantic tension and made her character more readable to the audience. We can infer a lot just from the fact that she is a young woman from a tiny community but a few added closeups during the big emotional bits would not have been amiss.
The biggest advantage this film has is its location scenery in Porkkala, especially the lighthouse. (Rönnskär, one of the oldest in Finland and already a century old when The Young Pilot was shot.) Karu frames many emotional exterior shots with the lighthouse in the background at various angles, which emphasizes both its position of oversight and the smallness of the island. Everyone can see it and it can see them, a fact that becomes important during the film’s finale. (Kudos to cinematographer Eino Kari, by the way.)
While the claustrophobia is not as pronounced or stylized as Teuvo Puro’s intentionally creepy 1926 gothic picture Before the Face of the Sea, which also revolves around vacationers stumbling into local affairs, the message is clear: there are no secrets for long in this small community.
The picture swings into dark territory at the very end (spoiler) with Eero, convinced that what he witnessed was a flirtatious game and not a prelude to assault, ramming his motorboat into the rowboat carrying Annikki and Viklund, throwing them both into the Baltic. He only rescues Annikki after she swears she is innocent and reluctantly tows Viklund back to shore as well. Eero and Annikki have a tearful reconciliation on her sickbed. This whiplash-inducing turn from attempted murder to a romantic clutch is emblematic to the romantic melodrama genre of the period: murder means you care. Not the healthiest of messages, true, but an integral ingredient to the romantic fantasies that were wildly popular.
If this kind of movie is your cup of tea, as it is mine, then you will find The Young Pilot to be extremely enjoyable. If you don’t like this sort of picture, I don’t think The Young Pilot will change your mind. This is the right film for a very particular audience that I happen to be a part of.
Where can I see it?
Stream for free on Elonet with optional English subtitles.
☙❦❧
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