Tracing the Roots: A Look at Kalevalan mailta

Is it worth your time?

If you're the type who likes slow-burn documentaries or has a weird obsession with 19th-century folklore, you might actually dig Kalevalan mailta. If you need a plot that moves faster than a glacier or characters who don't just stand around staring at the horizon, you’re going to hate this.

It’s essentially a travelogue of history. You follow Elias Lönnrot, but he’s less of a protagonist and more of a vessel for the landscape itself. The film treats the Karelian wilderness like it’s a character, which is honestly the best part.

The vibe

There’s this one sequence where the camera just lingers on the texture of the wooden structures in a village. It doesn't move. It doesn't cut. It just waits. It’s hypnotic, but also kind of frustrating if you’re waiting for something to actually happen.

The illustrations by Akseli Gallen-Kallela are woven in here, and they bring this weird, jagged energy to the screen that the live-action stuff lacks. It’s like watching an old scrapbook come to life. Very grainy. Very earnest.

• The music feels like it’s being played from three rooms away.
• The transition between the paintings and the real footage is... a choice. It feels a bit like a student project from the 1930s, but it has charm.
• I spent about ten minutes just wondering if the actor playing Lönnrot was actually cold or just really good at looking like he was freezing his toes off.

It reminded me a bit of the pacing in Life in the Sudan, where you just have to give up on the idea of a 'hook' and just let the geography wash over you. There’s no big climax. No big revelation. Just a guy with a notebook and a lot of forest.

Honestly, the movie gets better when it stops trying to be a biography and starts being a mood piece. When the camera stops trying to follow the people and just looks at the light hitting the trees, it’s actually kind of beautiful. 🌲

It’s a dusty, strange little artifact. Don't expect to be entertained, but maybe expect to be quiet for an hour. That’s enough sometimes.