Dog Nail Clipper

Mertsi is a young soldier left with permanent brain damage by the war. At the end of the forties he wanders the Finnish countryside looking for simple work and relying largely on the kindness of other people. A workmate, Ville, tells him about the clever spitz he keeps at home and the trouble with her overgrown dew claws. With Eetvi, a friend from the war, Mertsi takes work at a lumber camp in the depth of winter, tries hard, and finds it too much for his body and his mind. At night he sees the war; in the daytime he thinks about that dog. Markku Pölönen adapted it from Veikko Huovinen’s 1980 novel, and it won five prizes at the 2005 Jussi Awards, including best film, best direction, best script and best actor for Peter Franzén.