Silence

The film sets out from the fact that during the Second World War Finland was the only country to bring its dead soldiers home to be buried. The work was carried out by women and men at assembly centres near the enemy lines. The account shows these people in a gap between life and death, in a mental no man’s land where fear and joy, love and horror stand in the same place. The film does not show the front; it shows what the front sends back. The account builds no heroism and offers no justification for the war. Naming and carrying the dead becomes a daily job. Joonas Saartamo plays the lead in Sakari Kirjavainen’s hundred and twelve minute Finnish film, completed in 2011.