Flame Top
1980/10/17 • Released • Finnish
Overview
This biographical film celebrates the little-known life of the Finnish novelist and revolutionary Maiju Lassila (Asko Sarkola), born in 1868. Lassila's early years are briefly shown, then the film richly details his active and paradoxically reclusive adult life, beginning with his sojourn in St. Petersburg, working as a businessman. Unable to stay away from politics, he caused the assassination of a high-ranking Czarist and as a result, had to run back to Finland to hide. Once established in the comparative safety of a small village, he taught school in order to support his real vocation as a writer. Always living on the edge of poverty, if not square in the middle of it, Lassila continues to avoid public contact - he keeps his identity low-key and camoflages it by publishing under a variety of pseudonyms.
Director : Pirjo Honkasalo
Casts
Asko Sarkola
Writer Algot Lassila, aka Maiju Lassila, aka Irmari Rantamala
Rea Mauranen
Olga Esempio
Esko Salminen
Arwid
Yuri Rodionov
Rawitz
Galina Galtseva
Magda
Matti Oravisto
Commandant Carl von Wendt
Aleksandr Zakharov
Von Plehwe
Vadim Mikheyenko
Terrorist
German Lupekin
General Porunov
Elvi Saarnio
Olga Esempio in prologue (voice)
Yrjö Tähtelä
Narrator (voice)
Eeva-Kaarina Volanen
(voice)
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