A Nazi Killing John Wick – Interview by Rafy Mediavilla with “SISU” writer/director Jalmari Helander. Out April 28 In Selected Theaters!
During the last desperate days of WWII, a solitary prospector (Jorma Tommila) crosses paths with Nazis on a scorched-earth retreat in northern Finland. When the Nazis steal his gold, they quickly discover that they have just tangled with no ordinary miner. While there is no direct translation for the Finnish word “sisu”, this legendary ex-commando will embody what sisu means: a white-knuckled form of courage and unimaginable determination in the face of overwhelming odds. And no matter what the Nazis throw at him, the one-man death squad will go to outrageous lengths to get his gold back – even if it means killing every last Nazi in his path.
Criticólogos:
The story is a lot tied to the meaning of the title, so I wanted to know about the background of the title, and how it came about.
It wasn’t there in the very beginning when I had the idea of this guy finding a lot of gold and trying to take it to the bank with the Gladland full of Nazis. But I have had this idea about Sisu before also. It would be cool to have a movie called Sisu. So, it was quite fast after that when I realized, okay, this is the movie. This is the movie about Sisu. This is the movie about a guy who’s not going to give up in any kind of situation and he’s going to do what he was supposed to do no matter what.
Criticólogos:
Our protagonist is a man of few words. He mostly does all the talking with his actions, is that something that was there from the beginning?
I had something like three lines in the beginning when I was writing it, like something to talk with the dog or I don’t know. But it was clear to me when we started shooting that I’m not even going to use that because it was so nice to do a film without dialogue. Of course, we have a little dialogue there, but. But not with the main actor. It creates better in my mind to rather show something than talk about it.
Criticólogos:
This is an audiovisual experience, what was the most important part that you wanted to focus on when it comes to the audiovisual part?
Well, everything was important in the picture, like the location and all the vehicles and all the dirt and the clothes of the people. Well, I’ve watched a lot of action movies and. And it even was really important to me how would it look when bullets go through people and how the plot will fly to remind me of this old school John Woo kind of old shit. It’s all like everything in that film is something I really love and have been loving for all almost my whole life.
Criticólogos:
What were those defining factors that you used as inspiration to build this story?
And the inspiration is basically old Westerns and John Woo and First Blood and Mad Max and all that films with I grew up with the whole thing is there and this and I think it’s like a really nice foundation basically to build on uh and trying to make my own version of that kind of films.
See the interview below:
Trailer:
