The a Tale of Two Krigsbarns

In the lake country just north of Kristianstad, in Skåne, that old land that proudly remembers its old independent culture formed neither by the Danes nor the Swedes, there lives a man. I will call him Magnus, though his name is unknown to me. He’s somewhere between 65 and 75. Most of the time, he smells of cheap spirits and acrid, unwashed flesh. You might be tempted to think he was homeless if you met him on the road, because his tattered clothes and unkempt body don’t speak of home and care. Homeless he is not, however, because his small house, about 150 km from the lake, keeps the rain off and the chilly winds at bay. Still, one wonders if he doesn’t still feel quite displaced, even now, 60-some years after he came to Skåne as a “krigsbarn” – a war child – from Finland.

Neighbors whisper that he is rather strange. He is, they wager, an alcoholic. In any event, he’s a throwback to an earlier age in more ways than one. Shunning indoor plumbing (because of cost or custom, nobody knows), he runs to his outhouse come sun or snow, and his life is, by all accounts, simple and quiet, even if he has neither assimilated to the old Scanian culture or the new Swedish aesthetic.

There, in a land that still clings to its own identity as, at its roots, neither Danish nor Swedish, there is a man without roots, save those that dig into the frozen earth from the scant plum, cherry, pear and apple trees that fill his rotting mouth with their abundance when summer thaws the northern climes, and those that run deep, yet withered, to his Finnish birthplace.

Magnus is not much for words, but the words he shares on the rare occasion that a neighbor finds him out of doors and feeling sociable are un-Swedishly raw. He remembers war-torn Helsinki. He remembers bodies “delade på mitten” – rent in half at the waist. He remembers the strangeness of a new place and a new family after witnessing the far greater strangeness of human cruelty and war.

Neighbors think he must have stayed in Skåne rather than return to his native land when the war was over. Perhaps he had no family to return to, no home. Instead, he took up his dwelling there, in the quiet lake-land. He lives peacefully, alone, trying to forget the bitter fruit life fed him by cultivating fruit of a sweeter, life-sustaining sort and drinking the fermented spoils of the fruit of vine and field.

How did I learn of this now-grown Finnish krigsbarn? I watched a gem of a Finnish film “Äideistä parhain” or “Mother of Mine” and then I spoke of it to a Swedish friend, who just happens to be one of this man’s neighbors. This strange old Finn is one of the 70,000 very real Finnish children who found themselves transported to neutral Sweden during the war. He is one of the 70,000 people who are represented by Eero, a young Finnish lad -- a fictional composite -- who is sent to live with a Swedish family near Ystad, on the southernmost coast of Skåne -- about 60 miles south of the lake home of the Finnish man whose own experiences might have inspired the film had they been known in their own peculiarity.

“Mother of Mine” is visually stunning, and rich color and passionate music paint an emotional picture that is at once achingly simple and richly complex. Eero’s story, though steeped in time and place, speaks of the universal themes of life -- love, regret, sorrow, loneliness, despair, joy, hope, redemption, forgiveness -- that resonate here and now. The story of his two mothers -- one of the flesh, one born of war -- is a story of lives intertwining and permanently changing in ways that none of them could have predicted.

Certainly, life changed for Magnus, fresh from the horrors of Russian-invaded Helsinki. Nor will it ever be the same for the thousands like him and those Swedish families who made room at their tables for such as him. This film seems fitting tribute to their perseverance. It's no wonder that this film has won 11 international film awards; it is truly lovely... and it just might just bring a tear to your eye for the Eeros and Magnuses of the world, and for what they and their many mothers share in common with you and me.

Images are from http://terve.rossi.se/

There was a barber and his wife...

Dan heard an interview on the way to work yesterday with Tim Burton. Burton said that he had seen a stage production of Sweeney Todd years ago, before his movie career was a career, and that his work had been profoundly influenced by the musical ever since. He said that he knew if he ever filmed a musical, it would have to be Sweeney Todd. For my part, on my way to the theater, I remarked to Daniel that if anyone should film Sweeney Todd, it needed to be Tim Burton. Thankfully, the Hollywood and Broadway stars aligned to make this pairing possible, because this combination is as devilishly delicious as Mrs. Lovett's famous meat pies.

Sweeney Todd in any incarnation is not for the faint of heart. It's a brutal look at the ways evil and revenge consume humanity, based on a gruesome legend that has been told in many bloody incarnations before.

I know Sondheim's stage version better than most, because I lived it for a few months when I was cast as part of the "company" about 8 years ago. I was one of the revelers at the masked ball, one of the people taken in by Pirelli's miracle elixir, one of the greedy commoners devouring Mrs. Lovett's pies and one of the inmates in the asylum. My costumes changed throughout the night, from the heavy bustled gown of a depraved socialite (a Hollywood rental -- the dress of a "lady of the night" used in the filming of Jekyll and Hyde), to the scratchy wool skirts of a London low-life. With the costume changes came a change in demeanor, as the story changed London from its grim sooty gray to a blood-drenched midnight black.

I remember a very heavy feeling after each performance over the course of a few weekends. The cast members quickly developed the habit of eating or drinking together after the show, not just out of the usual cast camaraderie, but as a way to sort of gently usher ourselves back into the someone less gruesome details of our everyday lives that went on between bloody shows. I don't think we could do that musical without being changed by it ourselves. Even though I knew full well that the patrons of our Mr. Todd's chair walked up and away to their families and the smoke from the oven was simply the result of a strawberry-smelling smoke machine (I had to know -- I operated it by remote while running about the stage singing in full voice), the thought of the Mr. Todds and Mrs. Lovetts of the world was sobering... even for (or perhaps especially for) those cast members who tried to push back the sobriety with substances licit and illicit.

Sondheim's music is very intricate, challenging and, in many respects, opera-derived. I managed to do two Sondheim musicals during my theater phase, and I have done little music since that has rivaled his score for complexity and challenge. Sondheim develops the characters through music and weaves their stories together in a tapestry of sound as brutal and heartbreaking as the story itself. Of course, the medium of film is much different from that of stagecraft, and I have to confess that while most of the musical bits that were cut from the film were those that had been mine to sing on stage, I think it was adapted beautifully. Among other things, I think this adaptation managed to help the viewer suspend the disbelief that springs from watching all of London spontaneously sing in one voice, by giving the lyrics to just a few characters. I don't think I really missed the company parts, because they were there in the music, unvoiced, but conveyed by the faces of the throngs.

Other bits were added, some dialog was smoothed out, other omissions were made, but the story and music retained their integrity. Would you believe that the thing that bothered me the most was the removal of one word from one of Judge Turpin's lines? "Ablutions." In the stage play he says, "Perhaps I have been too hasty with my morning ablutions." Of course, I loved that word. It's a good word... underutilized enough that our Judge Turpin couldn't say it correctly to save his life. Every night I would pronounce it correctly under my breath, and I looked forward to the way it would roll off of Alan Rickman's tongue. But, alas, that word received the axe as surely as Sweeney's patrons met his razor.

The fact that this little change bothers me most should say something to those of you who know me well. Yes... it really was that good. I wasn't sure about the voices of some of the leads, but what they lacked in vocal prowess they made up in presence. In the context of Burton's trademark visual artistry, the musical I loved took on a new, somewhat different life.

I cannot recommend it without reservation, but that is simply because I don't think the story of Sweeney Todd is for everyone. As one theater-goer behind me said at the end of the film, "That is messed up. That is seriously messed up." It is messed up. It is messed up as humanity is messed up. We devour each other as surely as did the starving Londoners of Sondheim and Burton's fantastical vision. We spread parasitic destruction by our hate and lust and greed in ways as hidden, if apparently less sinister, as those of Sweeney and his Mrs. Lovett.

In short, if you can stand to stare the evil in your own heart dead in its murderous face, and if you can laugh at the absurdity of what we do to one another, then this film may be for you. If not, perhaps you should stick with Alvin and the Chipmunks and the softer side of whimsy.

I've made my choice, as did Burton, and I cannot say I am sorry I did.

"There was a barber and his wife, and he was beautiful. A proper artist with a knife, but they transported him for life... and he was beautiful."