A girl named Warpa

Selma Vilhunen (born 1976) has been filming documentaries and short films since 1999. Her most famous painting is “ ", nominated in 2014 for the Oscar award in the nomination for " For the best gaming short film " . The film was the first in the entire history of cinema in Finland short film nominated for this award, and only the second film nominated for this award in any nominations ^{[6] [7]} . After that, Vilhunen became a member of the US Film Academy and was invited to the jury of the 2015 Oscar ^[8] . The film “Girl named Varpu” was for her director's debut in feature films cinema. According to Canadian critic David D'Arcy, this debut for Vilhunen turned out to be pretty and realistic ^[9] .

Finding an actress for the main female role turned out to be difficult. Vilhunen told that she was looking for a girl who was not only a talented actress, but also a person with whom she would have some special connection - for Vilhunen this was important for the reason that the film contains elements related to her own biography : she, like Warpa, was raised by a single mother, and her father had problems similar to those of the main character's father. In addition, Vilhunen wanted the performer of the role of Warpa to be smart - despite her young age. Linne Skog, according to Wilhunen, possessed all these qualities ^[10] . According to Linnea herself, she got the role of Warp, after going through three stages of listening ^[9] .

The shooting took place in 2015 and lasted 5 weeks. Since Lynne was only 12 years old, her parents actively participated in the filming process. After reading the script, they had a long discussion with the director of the film about how it is permissible to go so far in the study of life problems when it comes to children. According to the memoirs of Laura Karen, mother of Linnaea, at some rehearsals, emotions were beaten over the edge. Linnea said that there was a scene that she did not want to play, and as a result this scene was never filmed. Frank Skog, the father of Linnaea, with twenty years of experience as an actor, helped his daughter with the role, especially in difficult scenes. According to him, for truthful images of emotions, he advised her to use her own memories. Linnea later said that the hard feelings for her are not difficult on their own, but because they have to be repeated from double to double, “to be sad many times in a row” ^[11] .

The name of the film used to display the film in English-speaking countries - Little Wing (“Wing”) - emerged, according to Vilhunen, after a long search. To convey the meaning of the name of the main character (“Sparrows” - this name in Finland is not very common, however, and is not particularly exotic), rendered in the Finnish name of the film, you had to find something small time, cheerful, cheerful ( small, yet resilient ). Jimi Hendrix's song “ Little Wing” , in which one person’s love for another person does not depend on any circumstances, is completely appropriate. According to Vilhunen, the lyrics of the song very accurately characterize the main character of the film, which, on the one hand, is angelic and generous being, and on the other hand, a wild creature that has its own strange world inside ^[10] . The same name, “Wing”, was used for some film shows in Russia ^[12] .

The protagonist of the film is a vulnerable and, at the same time, resolute and purposeful 12-year-old girl Warpu ^[9] . She lives in Helsinki together with her mother, who makes a living doing housekeeping in private homes. Warp's mother is impulsive and subject to panic attacks, she passes the driving test for the umpteenth time and again, no matter how hard she tries, fails - and, in general, she cannot responsibly approach the problems that inevitably arise in an adult having a child ^11] ; moreover, she herself often behaves like a child, like a younger sister ^[1] . Warpu quickly matures - in contrast to her mother, who has no way to grow up ^[5] .

Among the friends of Warpa is Svante's horse, with whom she is preparing for a competition; the girls with whom she does equestrian sports look down on her and adhere to her with questions about her father - and Warpa is not friends with them, but with teenagers from her yard. Among them, Anttu stands out - the guy to whom she feels sympathy: he knows how to open cars and start them without an ignition key. On the day of her 12th birthday, Antto rolls Varpa with a company in a hijacked car, and then gives her first driving lessons - and she is doing pretty well right away. The next night, when Varpu's mother falls asleep, she calls her friend - and they ride the stolen car again, this time together, while Varpu is driving. They confess sympathy to each other, but then Anttu begins to molest her, she does not like it, as a result Anttu takes offense and leaves. And Warpa leaves for Oulu (which is exactly six hundred kilometers north of Helsinki) - she does not know anything about her father except his name, surname and that he lives in this city ^[1] . She goes exactly north until the car runs out of fuel ... Not from the first attempt and not without the help of an urgently flew mother to her, she can find her father; he turns out to be an eccentric, unbalanced artist, to communicate with whom is not so simple, and sometimes impossible, but meeting him helps Varp and her mother to understand and rethink a lot ^[9] ...

• Skog, Linnaeus - Warpu Miettinen
• Vesala, Paula - Siru Miettinen, her mother
• - Ilmari Hukkanen, her father
• - Boo, Varpu's boyfriend
• - Ilmari Hukkanen, father’s full namesake Warp
• Sillanpää, Niina - Emilia Hukkanen, his wife
• Mäenpää, Outi - riding instructor
• Rautiainen, Puryu - Antto

The world premiere of the film took place at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, 2016, after which the film participated in more than twenty film festivals ^{[1] [5]} . September 15 saw the premiere of the film in Finland (at the Helsinki International Film Festival “ Love and Anarchy ”), and on September 23 the film was released in Finland. In Sweden, the film was released on December 6, 2017 ^[13] .

In Russia, the film was shown in March 2017 in Moscow as part of the “Finnish Film Festival” (titled “Girl named Warp”) ^{[2] [14]} , and in November 2017 in St. Petersburg as part of the Finnish Film Week (under the name "Wing") ^[12] .

September 26, 2018 the premiere of the film on Finnish television took place - it was shown on Yle TV2 channel (in Finnish with Swedish subtitles) ^[15] .

In general, the film was quite positively received by critics and viewers. According to the Rotten Tomatoes aggregator , 71% of professional film critics spoke positively about the film, while 100% of users of this aggregator rated the film at 3.5 stars (out of 5) or higher ^[16] . At the “Film Festival of Finland” in Moscow (2017), it was noted that this fictional drama “sounds very convincing,” since people and their “genuine emotions” were put in the first place in the film ^[2] .

Critic David D'Arcy called the film "a strange dramatic cocktail." He noted that the plot makes sharp turns from time to time, keeping the viewer's attention and avoiding the cliches characteristic of such films about growing up. Although events sometimes develop rather slowly, the sophisticated viewer gets pleasure from watching the psychological nuances of the main character's behavior. The problem, however, in his opinion, is that such a pace will most likely not be particularly attractive for the younger generation of viewers, on whom this film, in fact, is oriented ^[9] .

The film revelation, according to D'Arcy, was a young and balanced Linnae Skog in the role of the girl Warp. At the beginning of the film, her life is shown almost exclusively in a negative light: the girl lives in poverty and uncertainty, the peers with whom she plays equestrian sports, they laugh at her, and her mother goes from one failure to another; the dark atmosphere is underlined by the camera work of , who shoots events against the backdrop of the cold landscapes of winter Finland. One of the explanations why the girl is engaged in such a dangerous sport as jumping is, according to the critic, that she finds her “refuge” in her, and her only silent horse is the only strong being among those around her. Svante ^[9] . Vilhunen shows life as it happens, without focusing on the moral side of the matter and not asking whether it is allowed to drive cars at night with the boys in 12 years and whether it is permissible, without informing the mother, to leave for another city. What interests the director is the daily frustration of the main character, her chronic dissatisfaction with the situation in which she has no one to lean on. In a sense, the main character has to do everything herself (Vilhunen has already touched on this topic in her famous short film “Why should I do everything?”), But once the cup of her patience overflows - and she leaves her close world for a distant unknown world in which her father lives, about which she knows nothing ^{[5] [9]} . The father does not live up to her expectations ^[11] , but in the life of the main character she changes a lot: she realizes that perhaps it is better to love what is than to rush into the unknown in the hope of the best ^[10] ; her relationship with her mother seems to be cleared, becoming more understandable and natural ^[5] .

D'Arcy notes that the heroine Skog is very laconic, but those repressed emotions ( subdued emotion ), with which she watches the real world in general and, in particular, her infantile mother, who can not get used to this real world, make the film on a par with such well-known films about teenagers as “ My Dog's Life ” (Sweden, 1985) and “ Mermaids ” (USA, 1990), as well as remind about Truffaut 's films about Antoine Doinel, which began in 1959 with the famous “ Four Hundred " ^[9] . Linnea Skog herself, assessing her character, said that Warpu is not an ordinary teenager; and although in some situations she behaves in the same way as Linnea would have behaved, on the whole she is much more courageous ^[11] . Frank Skog, the father of Linnaeus, believes that it was always more common for his daughter to observe than to be active, and this particular feature was one of the reasons for her success in this film ^[11] .

The film was judged highly by the jury in Malmo . In substantiation of the incentive award “for the best children's film”, it was said that the film should especially mention the amazing image ( fantastiska gestaltning ) created by Linnaeus Skog: her heroine, who set off along gloomy reality, is both weak and strong, while the balance between her strength and her weakness is ideal ^[17] . The jury of the Northern Council film award , deciding to award the 2017 prize for this film, noted that Vilhunen was able to convey on the screen the deepest human feelings, showing that she was an extraordinary director and screenwriter. The rationale for the decision said that the director managed to build the film in such a way that the main character over and over again succeeds in avoiding clichés: soft in character, very intelligent and even wise in some sense, Varpu goes through a life in which everyone whom she meets is a real person, at the same time in something good and in something bad ^[5] .

• Hällsten A. Linnea Skog: Känslor kräver övning : [ Swede ] // Hufvudstadsbladet : newspaper. - Helsingfors , 2016. - September 13. - Access to the full version of the article is free via Facebook. The first publication of this article took place on December 27, 2015 .

• "A girl named Warp" (English) on the Internet Movie Database  
• D'Arcy D. 'Little Wing': Toronto Review : [ arch. 10.22.2016 ]: [ eng ] . - , 2016. - 10 September. - The date of the appeal: 11.11.2017.
• Oscar-nominated director Selma Vilhunen discusses her film Little Wing : [ arch. 11.11.2016 ]: [ eng ] . - Toronto International Film Festival , 2016. - 16 September. - The date of the appeal: 07.11.2017.