AHO & SOLDAN ® - Pioneering photographers and filmmakers

Everything Has Already Been Here

Tempo – it has everything. In this silent film by Aho & Soldan, trees fall toward the camera and masses of log move efficiently toward an impressive factory landscape. Skilful workers refine the harvest of the forest to benefit the whole nation. In the end, the forest has been turned into a cubist pile of boards, ready to be shipped to various corners of the world.

Finland prospered because of wood, and she still lives from wood. The most significant illusions of our nation´s identity and our understanding of history can be found in the wide variety of images created by this film production company. We want to believe in the story about the past that become an important part of our identities. The workers in Tempo wear crisp white shirts, the timber yard girl has had her hair done. At the end, the camera drives along the imposing industrial landscapes. These images are like fireworks that make you feel good. The visual expression speaks of method, of a clear vision behind the camera. These moments reveal the building blocks of our nation´s story. The Finnish film pioneers already had a broad command of all cinematic means. They sold this idyll of our country first abroad, but soon it caught on with us, the later generations as well.

Aho & Soldan´s images speak to me, a modern day filmmaker. They open a window into the thought processes of my colleagues from 80 years ago. We have much in common, we appreciate the same techniques – images must inspire and stir the audience. Filmmaking is a craft where experimenting and endless enthusiasm create interesting films. This is always noticeable, this inspires every time.

The evolutionary belief of our age buries beneath it many eternal links in the continuum of humanity. It is fascinating to imagine how much in humans is eternal and unchanging. Documentaries reveal these basic elements of humanity from the past; we are still able to interpret the thoughts and feelings of the mute people on film. Many of our habits that have been passed on from generation to generation date back thousands of years. Yet, the short history of film also shows a huge social development. We have changed our way of thinking and acting, but at the same time withdrawn to an island of our own concept of morality, where visitors are not welcomed. The documentaries in the Fading Souls programme tell tales of people – the world that surrounds us – that we in the West find almost impossible to understand. Their being is left alien to me, what do they live for? An equal measure of scarcity can be seen when Aho & Soldan point their cameras toward Finnish poverty in the 1930s. How did we rise from the destitution shown in the documentary Savutupien mailla? Is our history a series of fortunate coincidences? The eras of Finnish class society and the division of people were long forgotten, but during the last years we have shifted toward this path again. Ideas are slow to change, it is hard to let go of the notion that Finland is a special welfare society.

                      “These moments reveal the building blocks of our nation´s story”.

The great narrative of Finland is built through the flow of images, created by the entire media environment, emphasizing cell phones and the Winter War as the most significant matters in the nation. Documentarists should seek to expose and relate the invisible image of humanity through other means of art. When successful, this art form will convey to both contemporaries and future generations how Finns live, experience, feel and think – the special hues of the Finnish experience.

Text: Erkko Lyytinen (translation by Anna Volmari) – Artistic director, Helsinki Documentary Film Festival 2010. Published in DocPoint´s 2010 program, page 5.