A trio of surreal melodramas from Finnish director Teuvo Tulio including CROSS OF LOVE, RESTLESS BLOOD and the notorious SENSUELA

A mad, dreamlike combination of surrealist imagery and unhinged emotional intensity, the films of Finnish director Teuvo Tulio (1912-2000) are melodramas untethered from any sense of naturalism or narrative logic (or often good taste), operating in the same glorious, hallucinatory space as the subversive Brechtian melodramas of Douglas Sirk and R.W. Fassbinder.


CROSS OF LOVE (1946) Grizzled old lighthouse keeper Oscar Tengström loses his daughter Riitta (Tulio's frequent collaborator Regina Linnanheimo) to the pitfalls of the city and rakishly handsome Mauri (Ville Salminen). One day she meets a sensitive young man Henrik (Rauli Tuomi) who turns out to be a painter and wants her to model - DEAR GOD - half-naked, tied to a cross with her dress torn open.

RESTLESS BLOOD (1946) Blonde wife Sylvi (Regina Linnanheimo) seems to have an ideal marriage to doctor husband Valter (Eino Katajavuori), despite his 'innocent' flirtation with her kid sister - until her young son is killed by a speeding bus. She drinks poison in desperation - she survives but loses her sight. Features an intensely deranged performance by Linnanheimo, sporting Peter Lorre-in-MAD LOVE sunglasses and giving the whole film a German Expressionist / neo-horror / neo-noir vibe.

SENSUELA (1973) Tulio's last film - and arguably his greatest achievement - opens on Sámi reindeer herder's daughter Laila (Marianne Mardi) saving wounded German WW2 pilot Hans (Mauritz Åkerman). Hans quickly seduces her off to Helsinki, where she descends into a maelstrom of fabulous clothes and nudie photography and hippie orgies. What follows is an incredible mix of ethnographic reindeer herding docudrama, jawdropping John Waters / Doug Sirk / Russ Meyer / Anna Biller's THE LOVE WITCH-style melodrama blending eye-popping Technicolor, softcore eroticism / sexploitation, and Mod 60's / 70s Pop Art fashions and décor. Note: SENSUELA is intended for mature audiences and contains frequent onscreen nudity.

Media

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Bonus Materials

• All 3 films newly restored by KAVI - the National Audiovisual Institute of Finland
• First ever Worldwide Blu-ray release
• Bonus: The only remaining fragments from Tulio’s early features STRUGGLE FOR THE HOUSE OF HEIKKILA (1936, 9 min. clip) and FALL ASLEEP WHEN YOUNG (1937, 22 min.), both co-starring Regina Linnanheimo
• Bonus: Short documentary A FRENCH DISCOVERY - NUORENA NUKKUNUT (2015, 7 min., dir. Jani Jäderholm) on preserving the fragment of FALL ASLEEP WHEN YOUNG.
• Bonus: Two Finnish educational films from the 1940s, I WOULD LIKE TO BE A QUEEN (1947, 13 min.) and SHELTERS FOR NEWBORNS, 1946, 9 min.)
• Bonus: Rare trailer for the Swedish-language version of CROSS OF LOVE (1946).
• New audio commentaries by Dr. Eloise Ross, Rolf Giesen and Heidi Honeycutt.
• New visual essays by Danish filmmaker Reinert Kiil and Ryan Verrill & Dr. Will Dodson of Someone’s Favorite Productions.
• Blu-ray authoring by David Mackenzie of Fidelity In Motion.

 

Cast & Crew

Actors:

•       Regina Linnanheimo
•       Oscar Tengström
•       Ville Salminen
•       Eino Katajavuori
•       Marianne Mardi
•       Mauritz Åkerman

Director: Teuvo Tulio

Additional Details

Label: Deaf Crocodile

Genre: Film Noir

Language: Finnish

Run Time: 303 mins

Region: 1

Release Date: 01/20/26

UPC: 850066568521