The Unknown Soldier

The film follows soldiers of a Finnish Army machine gun company operating in the Karelia area during the Continuation War from mobilisation in 1941 to armistice in 1944. The company's action is based on Infantry Regiment 8 (Finnish: Jalkaväkirykmentti 8), the actual unit Väinö Linna served in. The film has no single central character and its focus is rather on different responses and views on the experience of war from a frog perspective.

A picture of the whole nation in a microcosm, the men of the company come from all over Finland. They have widely varying social backgrounds and political attitudes, and everyone has their own way of coping with the war. The film paints realistic, yet sympathetic, portraits of a score of very different men: cowards and heroes, the initially naive and eventually brave upper-class idealist Kariluoto, the down-to-earth Koskela, the hardened and cynical working-class grunt Lehto, the company comedian Vanhala, the pragmatic and strong-nerved Rokka, the politically indifferent Hietanen and the communist Lahtinen. Read more on Wikipedia.