Beginning with a sequence that challenges even the unforgettable opening of Touch of Evil (1958), Anssi Mänttäri’s The Mercenary Soldier focuses on the many aspects of pub philosophy. On the one hand, we have the shabby down-and-out men, such as the unemployed man separated from his children (Turo Pajala) who is beaten in the night. Then there’s the father (Kari Heiskanen) who paints the date of his child’s birth on the asphalt of his front yard and is harassed by semi-fascist guards and the morality police.
The Mercenary Soldier is also the story of a humble man (Ilkka Heiskanen) in the midst of an existential crisis: We have all been spat out into freedom. It traps us like a squeezing cage. What the hell are we doing with this freedom – or with life in general?
Freedom is just a word. There is no such thing. Yet a man does what a man chooses to do. In this case, he leaves his former life, his family, his job, and his woman and goes Yugoslavia into the middle of a civil war.
The subject caught Mänttäri’s interest – the film is based on a true story. The theme could be, “Find what you love – and then let it kill you.”
Joonas Nykänen