Reappropriations and Criticism of Finnishness in Tom of Finland , the Film and the Musical
2023; University of Illinois Press; Volume: 95; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.5406/21638195.95.4.02
ISSN2163-8195
Autores Tópico(s)Arts, Culture, and Music Studies
ResumoThe year 2017 was celebrated in Finland as the centennial year of Finnish independence. A variety of different cultural projects were commissioned to commemorate this event. Two of these, a film and a musical, were made about Tom of Finland, the alias used by Touko Laaksonen (1920–1991), a prolific artist who produced hundreds of works of homoerotic art. Laaksonen, alias Tom, came to symbolize mainstream acceptance of gay culture in Finland from the early 1990s onward (see Nykänen 1996, 143). In this article, I will discuss both of these cultural artifacts, the film and the musical, and argue how each of these, in their own way, broadened existing ideas of Finnishness by incorporating the history of sexual minorities as part of the larger narrative of the nation, but also how both rewrite and, at times, queer mainstream notions of Finnishness.1Compared to other Nordic countries, Finland's relationship toward its LGBT minorities has been more troubled. While Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland, for example, witnessed the discussion of gay rights already in the 1930s, efforts to initiate similar discussions in Finland were quashed under the weight of pressing political concerns. After the civil war of 1918, the rift between communists and extreme right-wing politics in the 1930s left little room for the discussion of gay rights. When World War II began, Finland sided with Nazi Germany, and due to the close connections between German and Finnish scientists, Freud's and Krafft-Ebing's views on homosexuality as a paraphilia transformed in the Nazi ideology to homosexuality being viewed as a disease, and this attitude spread also to Finland. (See Hagman 2016, 222–3.) Even though World War II allowed the highly moralistic and normative sexual culture to transform into a relatively permissive yet still inhibited sexual culture (see the section in this article on the musical's tango scene), the backlash of 1950s postwar sexual politics is depicted in both of the instances discussed here as a dangerous time for Finnish gay minorities. Gay subcultures were sporadically discussed in public throughout Finnish history from the 1950s and 1960s onward, a time when gay subcultures were forming in urban surroundings. Historically, in the agrarian context, homosexuality was not seen as posing a threat to heterosexual masculinities; only in the urban context did it become something that heterosexual majorities started to think of as othered, perverted, and dangerous. In the 1980s and 1990s, however, public opinion was turning from pathologizing to accepting discourses on homosexuality. (See Löfström 1999, 11–3, 16–9; Melanko 2012, 14; Mustola 2007a.)My goal in this discussion is to produce history-sensitive close readings (Bal 2002; Richardson 2016) of the film Tom of Finland (2017, dir. Dome Karukoski) and the musical Tom of Finland, The Musical (2017, dir. Reija Wäre) that attend to issues arising from writing on Finnishness and nationality (Anderson 1983; Billig 1995; Markkola, Östman, and Lamberg 2014; Lehtonen, Löytty, and Ruuska 2015); gay sexualities and queer studies (Dyer 1992; Halperin 2012; Juvonen 2002; Kekki 2000; 2010; Kalha 2001); and critical masculinity studies (Markkola, Östman, and Lamberg 2014; Kekki 2010; Kalha 2012). These critical themes are deployed in the context of readings that draw on approaches from film music studies and research on popular music (Richardson 2012; Pääkkölä 2016) that address the relationship of music and sound to cultural formations. Because of this orientation, I would align my work more closely with cultural studies than historical research, even though historical considerations are also unavoidably present in my discussions. My aim is to produce readings of the film and musical that describe how they participate in ongoing discussions about Finnishness in their cultural context, and how they participate in rewriting Finnish history. The concept of “homonationality” (Puar 2007; 2013) is of use in this task, although some of the term's applicability to Finnish homosexual culture and my source materials is limited. Two of the central questions I am seeking answers to include the following: Which traits of Finnishness as presented in these two artifacts are welcoming to, complementary with, or comparable to aspects of (Finnish) gay culture, and which can be understood as hostile to it? Additionally, how are queer/gay sexualities and the experiences of minorities made to negotiate traditional ideas of Finnishness, and what changes does the concept of Finnishness undergo as a result? I also provide a short review of Finnish films and musicals that have homosexual characters. This type of work has never before been undertaken with regard to musicals, which makes my article an important conversation starter in the context of research on Finnish musicals.2As Laaksonen's art is internationally acclaimed, Tom of Finland cannot be seen solely as a local, Finnish phenomenon; on the other hand, local narratives of Finnishness cannot be ignored when discussing artifacts produced in Finland that take a Finnish man as their subject. My aim is to focus on Finnishness, but the relevance of global issues to this subject is at the same time undeniable. This perspective extends also to such binaries as private and public (Touko vs. Tom of Finland; but also Touko Laaksonen vs. Touko/Tom seen onstage and onscreen) and temporality (the past, the 1940s to 1980s vs. the present, the late 2010s/early 2020s). As a queer feminist writer, I further discuss themes of gay masculinity, gay sex, heteronormativity, and the history of homosexuality as pertaining to Finland and Finnishness. As a musicologist, I read these themes especially by means of analyzing voices, music, and sound design in the cultural artifacts. Thus, my article involves a multidisciplinary mix of approaches from cultural musicology, theater studies, audiovisual studies, film (music) studies, and queer studies.It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss what Finnishness ultimately “is”; here, I focus more on how it has been constructed. The concept of nationality (Anderson 1983; Billig 1995; see also Higson 2000, 64; Kääpä 2010; Lehtonen, Löytty, and Ruuska 2015, 50–1) is broadly understood here as a constructed set of discourses, or “imagined community” (Anderson 1983), that in this case, implies a shared culture, language, and identity. The concept of “banal nationalism” (Billig 1995) is at the heart of the analysis, as it is constructivist by nature, based on the repetition of national symbols and idea(l)s of Finnishness. My hypothesis is that Finnishness as depicted in the Tom of Finland artifacts rarely includes LGBT minorities, and their overall aim was to broaden the traditional concept of Finnishness to include LGBT minorities as part of Finnishness, with varied strategies of reinforcing—but sometimes challenging—specific aspects of this construct. With this in mind, I will focus on three different aspects of the film and musical that can be thought of as negotiating Finnishness in relation to gay minorities. I explore both biographical works through: (i) Touko Laaksonen's and his partner Nipa's lives and how the characters represent Finnish LGBT politics and histories; (ii) narratives of war and heroism pertaining to the Finnish Continuation War (1941–1944); and (iii) experiences of homophobia before the decriminalization of homosexual acts in Finland, pitted against the closet culture's specific erotic potential. It is crucial to connect my discussion to the history of Finnish LGBT rights throughout the article; hence, it is also an exploration of Finnish LGBT history more broadly. In order to arrive at a more balanced overview of cultural artifacts and corresponding societal/political events, I have included a short review of gay characters in Finnish films, television series, and musicals from the 1950s on, which illuminates how the representation of gay characters has changed over the past 70 years, but it also highlights the necessity for further research on the subject.Films in general, and especially film musicals, have almost stereotypically been associated with the taste cultures of gay audiences (see, for example, Dyer 1990; 1992; Farmer 2000; Whitesell 2006; Halperin 2012). They offer opportunities for performers to enact, either indirectly or blatantly, gay themes for the consumption of non-homosexual (as well as minority homosexual) audiences. Finnish research on films and musicals regarding homosexual themes is still scattered and scant. The number of gay characters in films and musicals is not high either. The Finnish cinema and music industry has traditionally relied heavily on imported products, and the resources available for producing mainstream Finnish films and musicals have varied greatly over the decades; it is therefore plausible to expect that original Finnish productions mostly target an assumed cultural mainstream rather than catering to more heterogenous audience groups, including homosexuals. This logic applies only to the products of mainstream popular culture, however; no underground films or independent musicals are included in this study, and it is safe to assume that the findings would be different if the focus here had been on more marginal queer phenomena, which, in the Finnish context, implies a very narrow demographic.Sexual minorities have been represented in Finnish literature and theater more often than in films (see Kekki 2010; Mustola 2007a). There are specific reasons for this. Since the year 1935, Ministry of Education legislation had existed that prohibited themes in films that “loukkasivat uskonnollisia tai siveellisiä tunteita” (Juvonen 2002, 120) [were offensive to religious or virtuous feelings]; the only acceptable way of depicting sexual themes in films was to warn against their detrimental nature, while ensuring that the treatment of such themes was in no way arousing (Juvonen 2002, 120; Laine 1994, 139). Some allusions to homosexuality were, however, made after the year 1945, at which time the legislation was changed to evaluation on a film-by-film basis. Tuula Juvonen (2002, 118–9) has written about the depictions of homosexuality in Finnish films from the 1940s to 1960s and notes that homosexual characters are often depicted through allusions to certain stereotypes of boyhood/manhood, mainly “kaunis nuori mies” [beautiful young man] (Ihmisiä suviyössä 1948; People in the Summer Night); “mammanpoika” [mummy's boy], a common comedic character outside of heteronormative sexuality, who often manically avoids the attention of women; and the “buddy” film genre, which in the Finnish context is most closely approximated by, for example, the “Pekka and Pätkä” franchise. Some cross-dressing army “farce comedies” (farssikomedia) toyed with homosexuality in films such as Tyttö lähtee kasarmiin (dir. Aarne Tarkas, 1956; A Girl Goes to the Army), where a kiss between a brother and a cross-dressed sister is encoded as “between men”; or Vatsa sisään, rinta ulos! (dir. Aarne Tarkas, 1959; Stomach In, Chest Out!), where the gynophobic leading character can be recognized as exhibiting internalized homophobia, especially as he is forced to cross-dress in order to escape an all-female school institution (Laine 1994, 137–40).Depictions of homosexual characters came to Finnish films through filmatizations of novels or theater pieces, the works of Mika Waltari being the most important of these. Waltari's works often dealt with both male and female homosexuality. Based on his novel, the film Kaasua, komisario Palmu! (dir. Matti Kassila, 1961; Gas, Inspector Palmu!) features the first character in Finnish cinema history who is a homosexual: the decadent, upper-class artist Kurt Kuurna (Juvonen 2002, 130–2). Another of Waltari's comedic plays is Rakas lurjus (dir. T. J. Särkkä, 1955; Dear Scoundrel), which toys with homosexual themes in a plot in which a girl dresses up as a boy in order to sublet a room with two sworn bachelors, both of whom fall for the boy/girl, while pondering “Olenko minä sellainen mies?” (Juvonen 2002, 133–7; Laine 1994, 140) [Am I really that kind of man?]. Regardless of the playful nature of these representations, homosexuality was always clearly separated from ideals of Finnishness: these were not masculine men but criminals, effete upper-class dandies, and, not incidentally, they are often othered by being depicted as Finnish-Swedish (Juvonen 2002, 144).3The non-criminalization of homosexuality in Finland in 1979 was not reflected in any specific way in Finnish films. Television shows already in the 1990s, on the other hand, took a bolder stance toward depicting homosexuality. Lasse Kekki (2000) has written about the first openly homosexual character in a Finnish soap drama, Salatut elämät (Hidden Lives), who is “myönteinen, samastuttava ja stereotyyppejä välttävä” (Kekki 2000, 272) [positive, relatable and avoiding stereotypes]. (He emphasizes that this is the first depiction of male homosexuality in television that leans more on international depictions of gayness rather than using homosexuality as a signifier of questionable morals or otherness. From the 2000s onward, Finns became accustomed to seeing gay characters in many foreign imports in film and television. However, it is fair to say that Tom of Finland (2017) is the first mainstream Finnish film production to present a balanced, nuanced and non-stereotypical depiction of a gay character in a leading role. Two other such films appeared almost simultaneously: A Moment in the Reeds (dir. Mikko Mäkelä, 2018) and Pihalla (2017, dir. Nils-Erik Ekblom; double entendre meaning “In the Yard”/“Out of the Loop”).The history of original Finnish musicals and gay subjects or characters is much shorter. Apart from the fact that Finnish original musicals are scarce in number, musicals in Finland are considered a form of entertainment rather than high art.4 In other words, original musicals from Finland produced for the stage, again, almost invariably address mainstream audiences; often, they are fairy-tale musicals for children. No research exists on the subject of original Finnish musicals and themes of homosexuality, so I consulted my connoisseur friends at the Finnish podcast Musikaalimatkassa makers, and they could think of only one example: the opera HOMO! (2011) written by Pirkko Saisio, but even this does not qualify, as it is a self-proclaimed opera, not a stage musical. Tom of Finland, The Musical stands alone, then, in addressing gay themes in the context of a mainstream Finnish-produced musical. Kekki (2010, 60–6) has written a short account of how Finnish theater has addressed homosexuality from the 1960s to current day, where he laments how research on the subject remains scant or non-existent. Undoubtedly, more research on theater and musicals is needed that attends to these issues.Laaksonen's life has been documented in a few biographies and other publications (for example, Luoto 2017; Ramakers 1998); to the extent that they draw from these existing sources, both the film and the musical versions might be considered biographical adaptations (Taavetti 2018). Here, my interest lies mainly in the two main characters: Touko/Tom and his lover Veli/Nipa.5 While the film and the musical are distinctly different from one another (the film is an earnest depiction, the musical, a comic one), they are similar in their treatment of characters. The film focuses on Laaksonen's life from the Continuation War of the 1940s to the peak of his artistic career in the 1980s. The musical depicts a young Touko living in rural Kaarina, Finland, and ends with Touko's death in 1991. Here, I will mostly study the scenes where Touko and Nipa are depicted as the romantic leading couple and how their characters and romance pertain to question regarding Finnishness and “normalcy.”In both works, Laaksonen is depicted as a steadfast, masculine Finnish man who does not resort to camp codes, but rather, general codes of Finnish masculinity formed in the Second World War, which have since been upheld as ideal: steadfast, reliable, and succinct when speaking (see, for example, Jokinen 2006, 149). Both Touko Laaksonen actors6 are tall, dark-haired, and lanky, and they have chiseled features and speak in deep, masculine voices (see fig. 1 and fig. 2). Through Laaksonen's character, contemporary audiences witness the history of gay minorities as represented by their changing legal status in the history of Finland: brothers in arms in the 1940s, criminals in the 1950s, mental patients in the 1970s, and part of a validated, if not yet emancipated, international subculture in the late 1980s. As Touko witnesses and sometimes himself experiences structural homophobia and violence, progressing from hiding his homosexuality to advocating for gay cultures’ visibility, he also seems to stand on the outside of events in order to act as a stand-in for contemporary audiences. In this transhistorical status, Touko/Tom always seems to know, not just hope, that things will get better if only something is done to improve the situation; he regards intolerance and violence as unacceptable but temporary, and starts working against society's prejudice initially through his art, and later as a gay activist. At the same time, this transhistorical role positions Touko/Tom in a state of “temporal disjuncture” (Nestingen 2016, 306), accentuating his sense of unbelonging to Finnish mainstream culture. Touko/Tom acts in both plot lines as a figure of gay acceptance, the quiet optimist who believes in better times for gay people, offering support to other gay characters who seem to suffer emotionally from homophobia much more than Touko/Tom does. The musical paints him ultimately as a champion of sexual liberty, while the film casts Tom as an international figurehead for gay rights and AIDS awareness.Touko's lover Veli, or Nipa, is, in both examples, a more boyish character, being of a younger generation (see fig. 3 and fig. 4). Both plot lines refer to a sense of self-loathing or internalized homophobia at the beginning of the relationship. Nipa is the first gay character that Touko is responsible for turning toward self-acceptance early on in their relationship in both works. Their relationship is mirrored (in both examples) through the presence of Touko's sister Kaija, who is smitten with Veli, and whom Veli does not reject, as he is still struggling with his homosexual urges. In a telling scene of the film, a Finnish romantic setting of midsummer celebrations in the rural Kaarina area, Veli (Lauri Tilkanen) notices Kaija (Jessica Grabowski) giving him an inviting look. She goes on to perform a traditional midsummer folklore spell to make Veli find his way to her and for their romance to begin. Veli does go out to follow Kaija, but sees Touko, not Kaija, reflected in the lake's surface. Nipa (Lauri Tilkanen) still resists, claiming “Mä olen paha, olen pilalla” [I'm evil, ruined], to which Touko answers firmly “et ole” [no you're not] (see fig. 4) before kissing him. The idyllic sounds of birdsong are finally transformed into a piano and cello arrangement depicting romantic fulfillment (Tom of Finland 2017, 53:18–55:55). The scene functions also as a reparative reading of the myth of Narcissus, whose admiration of his reflection in the stream/mirror is often turned in queer cinema from narcissism to exploration and admiration of the same-sex body, often invoked by Jean Cocteau. Here, Veli's gazing into the lake is finally responded to: there is another figure, Touko, next to the mirror image, and hence, his loneliness within his sexuality can finally end (Pääkkölä 2016, 82).In the musical, Nipa (Jukka Nylund) meets Tom for the first time in a park's cruising area. Tom takes him to his place, where Nipa sings: “Hävettää vinoutunut mieliteko / kismittää rivoutunut jätkä seko” (Tom of Finland, The Musical 2017) [I'm ashamed of my crooked fancies / I'm annoyed by this lewd, crazy dude]. Touko responds to this: “Käänny tännepäin / ollaan pystypäin” (Tom of Finland, The Musical 2017) [Turn over here / let's keep our heads held high]. After this, their love duet begins. Touko's role was cast for a baritone and Veli's for a high tenor. Considering the two roles, Veli's actor's voice range is considerably higher than that of Touko, thus marking their age difference but also suggesting a music historical queering of Veli's masculinity. In the love duet, Nipa sings the phrase “rakenna tupaani tuuleen / tähteistä en kuunaan piittaa / toiselta toisinaan tulleen” (Tom of Finland, The Musical 2017) [build my house on the wind / I never care for scraps / here and there coming from others], which ends on a high falsetto fifth note, fading away to silence. This reveals Nipa's own “temporal disjunction” (Nestingen 2016, 306): his masculinity is expressed through the male falsetto voice type, which is often encoded as feminine, weak, and as a trigger for homophobia; but, at the same time, the male falsetto register has been reappropriated in queer musicology studies as having the potential to transgress traditional masculinity codes, even being androgynous and sexually ambiguous (see Pääkkölä 2016, 113; Richardson 1999, 138–40; Dame 2006, 142). Veli's voice type reaches toward the ambiguous, the sublime, and becomes a musical symbol for sublimating one's sexual drives as a closet strategy; nevertheless, Tom draws Nipa into the main love theme, where phrases sung by the two characters criss-cross in a musico-erotic canon: “Eilen olin sinun / tänään olen sinun / muuta en tarvitsekaan” (Tom of Finland, The Musical 2017) [yesterday I was yours / today I am yours / that is all I need]. Their entangled musico-erotic lovemaking is then made to sound, as this creates a historical echo of Baroque operas. In Monteverdi's operas, two male singers singing in close proximity could perform the roles of lovers in a kind of musical “friction to heat” (McClary 2002, 37; Scott 2003, 21). This principle presupposes both parties’ sexual pleasure, as it was believed that pleasure for both parties in sex ensured that conception would take place. Disregarding this heteronormative outcome, the principle of musical “friction to heat” relies on notes “rubbing against each other” in close proximity (a popular interval being the minor second, which is found in brief moments in this melodic line too), alternating their positions in a form of melodic hierarchy; crudely put, the voices alternate between “top” and “bottom” melodic lines. While Baroque duets usually featured a castrato tenor and another high voice (another castrato tenor in a travesti role or a female soprano), musical lines in lower male registers can similarly be heard as erotic play, especially when framed as a sexual encounter between Tom and Nipa, who sings in the countertenor register. The effect is both erotic and romantic, and closely connected to queer sexualities and pleasures (see Pääkkölä 2016, 80).As characters who represent the Finnish gay minority, Tom and Nipa's duet as an erotic-romantic encounter represents a deconstruction of older homophobic Finnish narratives about pathetic gays groping each other in the park, and rewrites a highly closeted relationship, of which Laaksonen's family knew nothing until very late in his life, as a deeply meaningful one, especially as the duet returns in the scene where Veli ultimately dies of lung cancer. In a sense, the duet also becomes a vow of marriage, similar to the film's curtain scene where Touko and Veli say “I do” to the curtain seller's questions: the notion of “you are all I need” strengthens their resolve to stay together until the end. In this way, both the film and the musical offer modern audiences an inside view of a type of informal marriage, which becomes a form of transhistorical commentary since the film was released in the same year when same-sex marriage was legalized in Finland. Finnish politics has indeed moved forward, which can be seen in this symbolic and artistic “marriage” of Touko and Veli. Of course, one might argue that it would be erroneous to think of marriage as an inevitable or even preferred goal for gay or queer couples, as it has been commonly regarded as a highly heteronormative institution (see, for example, Halberstam 2012). Therefore, both scenes could also be read as pandering to heteronormative conceptions of romance, where illicit sexual escapades and pornographic images, mainly Tom of Finland's art and its blatant sexuality, are othered and made to seem irresponsible or tawdry compared to the long-term commitment of “proper” marriage (see Pääkkölä 2018; Taavetti 2018). This is especially true of the film version (Taavetti 2018). It would be forcing the argument to claim that the musical's aim is somehow to conceal or downplay the pornographic images of Tom of Finland's art, as it frequently enacts scenes from Tom's artwork in fantastical settings, including the presence of the highly fetishistic Kake as a character in the musical; it is justified, however, to think of Tom and Nipa's relationship in the musical as positioned outside of, or separate from, Tom's pornographic art.This raises the question whether seemingly liberal and non-stereotyped depictions of gay men are ultimately more reductive than those providing opportunities for resistant readings. Most noticeably, both characters are defined, at the end of the day, through the concept of “normalcy,” which is bound up with the film's and the musical's makers’ endeavors to de-pathologize gay male sexuality. Furthermore, the concept of “normalcy” is closely attached to Finnishness, as argued by Olli Löytty (2015). Accentuating “normalcy” is to do away with social, cultural, or other differences and thereby build a sense of belonging to Finnish “yhteiskulttuuri” (consensus culture), the supposed “unicultural” basis of Finnish nationhood. Thus, Touko and Nipa are shown as “normal Finns” somehow, “despite” their gayness or status as outsiders in the historical society where they lived in actuality. Löytty calls the ethos of normalcy “suomalaisuuden sisällä toimiva laaduntarkkailumekanismi” (2015, 60) [the mechanism for quality control working within Finnishness], whereby people considered as normal belong to the concept of Finnishness more than those who are considered to be ab- or, rather, non-normal. Applying this to Puar's “homonationalism,” the concept of “the normal gay” stands in as a symbol for Finland's and Finnishness's modernity as it is today, not “then”; Touko's disapproving glances directed toward homophobic gestures become transtemporal looks of disapproval from the perspective of Current Finland. I shall further explore this idea in the section discussing the 1950s in Finland.Traditional narratives of Finnish war can usually be seen as artistic renditions of nationalist discourses full of unquestioned symbols and myths, which are “forged to meet new needs through iterative symbolic practices which claim a putative link with the communal past” (Smith 2000, 47). In light of the growing body of research on homosexual soldiers and their experiences that has surfaced since the 1990s (see Mustola 2006; Näre 2016; Taavetti 2018), the two different biographical Tom of Finland dramatizations can be seen as re-imagining wartime narratives of Finnish heroism, but at the same time, it is apparent that no direct criticism of heroic narratives is offered in either of these instances.For the most part, the film portrays Touko as a calm and wise squad leader who nevertheless seems equal in status to other soldiers, frolicking around naked with them in the waters of a frozen river, only stopping for a while to stare at one soldier emerging from an ice hole (02:18–02:51). Their shared cultural exchange is not represented (as would ordinarily be the case in Finnish war films) through alcohol, insubordination, or “locker talk,” but through togetherness and music: Laaksonen's factual position as the squad's choir master in the war (see Mustola 2006; Luoto 2017) is brought to the fore. Portraying Laaksonen as belonging to the squad showcases symbolically that homosexual soldiers were equal to heterosexual ones; however, homosexual relations during the war (see Mustola 2006, 174; Näre 2016) are toned down in the film, only hinted at by the introduction of captain Alijoki (Taisto Oksanen), who recognizes Touko as a fellow queer and becomes friends with him. In a way, this could be seen as reinforcing the idea that homosexuals are good soldiers, but only if they do not engage in homosexual acts, as noticed by Taavetti (2018), who compares Tom of Finland to the 2014 film The Imitation Game about Alan Turing.The Tom of Finland film depicts Touko as serving in the army during the Continuation War and how the war affects him traumatically immediately afterward. At the beginning of the film, Touko kills a Russian soldier and is then haunted by the experience.7 Audiovisually, the killing scene is made in a non-dramatic way, accentuating realism rather than ultraviolence or fantastical aestheticization.8 Against the backdrop of sound effects of a plane passing over the scene, and Touko's footsteps and breathing, a pulsating musical cue fades in and out as Touko observes the Russian soldier falling from the air with a parachute. Touko runs to the soldier, panting, and stabs him in the back with a flat, unimpressive thump. The soldier falls down, dead. Touko sits nearby, surrounded only by birdsong and crickets in an ironically idyllic Finnish summer scene, and returns to the soldier to look at his face. In close-up, his breathing becomes labored and the cricket sounds become louder, engulfing the soundscape in a nightmarish way (Tom of Finland 2017, 09:42–12:04). A jump cut follows this to Touko's screams as he awakens from his nightmarish flashbac
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