The Song of the Scarlet Flower

The hot-blooded spectacles of Finnish iconoclast Teuvo Tulio marry a searing, expressionist visual language with a sincere belief in the transcendent power of melodrama. His earliest surviving work follows a rake’s progress as cocky, love-’em-and-leave-’em lumberjack Olavi (Kaarlo Oksanen) wanders the countryside conquering logjams and the local maidens alike—until his reckless ways come back to haunt him. Interspersing lovely, bucolic interludes with moments of startling emotional intensity, this scalding indictment of male chauvinism is extraordinary in the way it cuts its caddish antihero down to size while standing up for its wronged women. Courtesy of the National Audiovisual Institute, Finland.