dispense flour, salt and gold coins. Ilmarinen has the skill to do this, but cannot until Anniki has found true love. The evil witch Louhi (Anna Orochko), who lords over a race of trolls on the rocky isle of Pohjola, covets a Sampo of her own and, knowing that Ilmarinen alone can produce one, abducts his sister, propelling the shy Lemminkäinen into action to rescue his beloved—and simulta- neously making the Sampo a pos- sibility. After proving his mettle to Louhi by forging a giant red stal- lion to plough a field overrun with snakes, Ilmarinen proceeds to hammer the Sampo into being, which immediately begins to spill its plenty. Once Anniki is released to her brother, Lemminkäinen swims back to Pohjola to sabo- tage the witch’s newfound wealth by unleashing a fog she has im- prisoned and stealing the Sampo back under its cover. Louhi’s an- ger causes a storm at sea, de- stroying both the Sampo and our hero’s boat, forcing him to swim to land having rescued only part
of the mill’s radiant lid. On the day of Lemminkäinen’s marriage to Anniki, Louhi casts Kalevala into darkness by abducting and imprisoning its sun. The people of Kalevala are informed by Vänämöinen (Urho Somersalmi), their elder, that the sun can only be reclaimed by peaceful means and the villagers gather on a fro- zen lake for their ultimate confron- tation with Louhi’s troll warriors. Anyone familiar with THE DAY THE EARTH FROZE longs to see the film in its original form, but its final revelation is something of a disappointment. The reasons for this have nothing to do with the film’s direction, cinematography, casting or production values— these are stunning—but its indebt- edness to “The Kalevala” itself is unfortunately limited and limiting to its mandate as entertainment. Restored here to its original run- ning time, a number of staunchly nationalistic songs are also re- stored, which to uninvested ears sound more political and propa- gandistic than fantasy should be.
There is also a certain monotony of geography as the story end- lessly bounces back and forth be- tween the shores of Kalevala and Pohjola, a sense of landlock that is somehow echoed by the script’s fidelity to Lennrott’s original verse. As spoken in Finnish, the dialogue flows in proud but leaden couplets from beginning to end, allowing for no variation in the ways char- acters speak; furthermore, the subtitling of the verse (in English, though options in French, Ger- man and Finnish are also offered), is blocky rather than supple, though it is reportedly faithful to a translation by John Martin Crawford that appeared in book form in the late 19th or early 20th century. Granted, the film’s great spectacle sequences are here more arresting than ever—the fiery red stallion that ploughs the field of adders is an awe-inspiring sight, as is the rainbow-radiating Sampo itself—but its spectacle is here spread out over a wider, duller canvas. Even within these perimeters, Sampo is undoubtedly
One of SAMPO’s show-stopping special effects highlights: Ilmarinen forges a horse of red-hot metals to plough Louhi’s snake-ridden fields.
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