On the surface, ‘A Journey Through Picturesque Finland’ is a standard travelogue, no different than any of the other travelogues piled to the ceiling in archives throughout the world (and not much different from lots of YouTube content today). Viewers gets to experience the most impressive monuments and must-see places in a particular region from the comfort of their armchairs (or cinema seats), and maybe enough of them will actually head there for a holiday to offset the production costs. These kinds of films were enormously popular during the Early Cinema period and were already standard fare by 1918 – so why would we be showing it? As ever, context is king. After the collapse of Tsarist Russia, Finland emerged as an independent nation in 1917. By the time this film was released, a bloody civil war had begun which would cost in total about 35,000 people their lives. So please, sit back and soak in the views of a beautiful and blessed new-born nation, but remember: what the proud parents don’t say is just as telling as what they do.

Karl Wratschko