2010 07 20 - SFS - The Cross of Love / Rakkauden Risti

The Cross of Love / Rakkauden Risti


Director: Teuvo Tulio

1946
Finland
99 min
35mm
NC16

In Finnish with English subtitles

Lurid, excessive and unapologetically melodramatic, The Cross of Love

exemplifies the style of filmmaking that Finnish director and former

matinee idol Teuvo Tulio is most famously known for.

Through the form of a ‘cautionary tale’, The Cross of Love tells the story

of a naive lighthouse keeper’s daughter who longs for a life in the big

city. One stormy night when a suave stranger is rescued from drowning by

her father, she decides to elope with him to the city against her father’s

wishes. After arriving in the city, she soon finds herself trapped in a

downward spiral of ruin and destruction.





Like many Finnish films made in the 1940s, The Cross of Love falls under

the genre of “problem film” that examines the social upheaval in the

aftermath of the war. What transcends the film is the delight in which it

takes in the breaking of the moral code and the wild energy that the

director imbues in the film with scenes that alternate from the absurd to

the sublime, creating a frenzied montage of sin and redemption that

achieves an almost religious fervour.





Film print and stills courtesy of the National Audiovisual Archive

(Finland). Special thanks to Satu Laaksonen.





About the Director Teuvo Tulio (1912 ­ 2000)





One of the most fascinating figures of Finnish cinema and a major

influence on Aki Kaurismäki, Teuvo Tulio began his career in the 1920s as

a matinee star and Finland’s answer to Rudolph Valentino. In the 1930s, he

turned his hand to directing and became famous for creating melodramas

that blurred the line between morality and sensation.





Tulio’s films were known for their wildly expressive style and often

featured stories of fallen women and the duplicitous men that betrayed

them. Most of his films starred his long-time collaborator and muse Regina

Linnanheimo whose over the top dramatisation was a perfect match to his

manic vision.





Some of Tulio’s most memorable films include The Song of the Scarlet

Flower (1939), a story about a lascivious lumberjack set against the

backdrop of a beautiful rugged countryside; In the Fields of Dreams

(1940), a sexually frank melodrama of a shepherdess led astray; and The

Way You Wanted Me (1944), a story about a country girl forced into

prostitution.


Falling into obscurity in the 1970s, Tulio’s reputation as a master of

melodrama was reinstated through a series of retrospectives presented in

the United States.