Punchy drama documenting Finnish resistance to Russian rule, leading up to an assassination in 1904
Year: 2019
Certificate: 12
This political thriller from Finland might be set in the early 1900s, but it feels all too relevant today. The three-parter is set at a time when the Nordic nation was an autonomous part of Russia, an arrangement that the Russians were trying to tighten. Then, in 1904, a Finn named Eugen Schauman assassinated Nikolay Bobrikov, the Russian Governor-General of his country, a man known as ‘The Devourer of Finland’.
The Activists dramatises the build-up to that moment, moving with pace and bringing to life what resistance means for the everyday existence of those forced into that position. We see how they cope, how they cut loose and, crucially, how they act on their beliefs in a series that feels a million miles away from a stuffy costume drama.
It’s also a hero’s journey of a sort as, when we first meet Schauman (Oskar Pöysti), he doesn’t look like the kind of man who would rise to become a national hero. You can see glimmers of possibility, though. (Three episodes)
