Jarva, Risto (1934 - 1977)
film director, producer
Photo: Ilpo Lukus, Uusi Suomi Photo Archives
Risto Jarva was one of the most significant film-makers of his generation. His career spanned a period of transition in Finnish film history, when the old studio system was about to end, and when the policy of government subsidies had not yet established itself. Jarva made his films as an independent producer-director. He started as a reformer, went on as a social critic and, with his three last films, ended up as the favourite of the cinema theatre audience.
Risto Jarva was born, grew up and went to school in Helsinki; he lived in his home in Topeliuksenkatu on the Töölö Market Square until his adulthood. His mother died of tuberculosis when he was eight years old. Risto grew into a lonely child who became absorbed in his play and games. He started doing photography at 12 years of age, later being appointed as the school photographer for all the classes of Apollon yhteiskoulu, when he started senior school there.
Jarva matriculated in 1954 and, following his father's example, entered the University of Technology (Teknillinen Korkeakoulu), where he took his degree in chemical engineering in 1964. He went on with his photography, starting to make 8 mm films in Montaasi, the cinema club of the technology students. Jarva also worked in the student association of his university, and as the main editor of the magazine Teekkari ('Engineering Student') in 1960 - 61. His short film Työtä ylioppilasteatterissa ('Work at the Student Theatre') of 1961, made in cooperation with the Student Theatre, won a government film prize.
Jarva's first long film of a play Yö vai päivä ('Night or day', 1962) was created for the celebration of the 90th anniversary of the student association of Jarva's university, directed together with the director of the Student Theatre at that time, Jaakko Pakkasvirta. The film company Filminor was founded for the purpose, the majority of the shares being held by the engineering students' association. Later on Filminor became the producer of all Jarva's films. Even Yö vai päivä received a government prize. Filminor started cooperating with the comedian Spede Pasanen, making X-paroni ('X-baron', 1964), which Jarva directed together with Pasanen and Pakkasvirta. Jarva's first independently directed film, Onnenpeli ('Game of fortune' 1965), was an expression of the aesthetic radicalism of the "new waves" of the 1960s, anticipating social radicalism. Jarva's next film Työmiehen päiväkirja ('A worker's diary', 1967) was a radical breakthrough in Finnish film. It could be seen as a territorial conquest, the first working class film, and the key film of the socially engaged decade.
In his succeeding films Jarva dealt with various social phenomena essential for him. Ruusujen aika ('The time of the roses', 1969) builds up a future prospect in the spirit of the year 1968, Bensaa suonissa (1970) is a critical description of the car culture, Kun taivas putoaa ('When the sky falls in', 1972) is the story of a victim of the gutter press, and Yhden miehen sota ('One man's war', 1973) the story of a small entrepreneur. In his last three films Jarva returns to comedy, proving able to deal with important problems through laughter while succeeding in reaching out to a mass audience. Mies joka ei osannut sanoa ei ('The man who couldn't say no', 1975) is a description of a tree-house community, advancing in farcical turns and incidents; Loma ('The holiday', 1976) deals with Finnish tourists on a holiday in the sun, and Jäniksen vuosi ('The year of the hare', 1977), adapted from a novel by Arto Paasilinna, questions the conditions of our entire lifestyle, building up to a kind of synthesis of Jarva's many genres of style and his thematic aspirations.
Risto Jarva died in a car accident on his way back from a private showing of his film Jäniksen vuosi , and the subsequent party. He was professor of film 1970 - 75, chairman of the film policy committee 1970 -74, and senior teacher of film and TV in the University of Art and Design (Taideteollinen korkeakoulu) in Helsinki 1975 - 77.
Jarva's directing career started at a time when the old companies were closing their productions, and the audiences were shrinking because of TV and other factors. New small companies such as Jarva's Filminor had to start from the start, struggling to get the financing together for each of their films. Their work was short-term, having to rely on government prizes at first, then on the Finnish Film Foundation financial support. The Foundation only took its present form in the year that Jarva died, 1977. Jarva had to live through these transitional difficulties in three different capacities: as a small entrepreneur, film politician and practising artist.
Jarva's photography, short films and other cultural engagements made him grow into the aesthetic radicalism of the 1950s, which spawned social radicalism in the 1960s. While Jarva ranged from documentary to fantasy, throughout his career he realised a kind of avantgardism. His experimentalism could appear in disguise, but fantasy and the deep dimensions of consciousness were present even in the most conventional-looking outlines. To take an instance, Jarva's comedies contain cuts, images, combinations of picture and sound, layers of stream-of-consciousness only rarely found in mediocre entertainment films.
The subject matter of Jarva's production contains ventilations on town and countryside, nature and technology, the past and the future, individual consciousness and social organizations, love and death. Jarva's films explore Finland in the 1960s and 1970s, including a variety of environments and professions, leisure activities, the great structural change in society, anticipations and the dreams in people's minds.
Jarva was both an engineer and an artist. In directing his films, he worked at the intersection between technology and the humanities, bridging these two cultures. The conflict between technology gone wrong and a natural lifestyle is present in most of Jarva's films, and he does not avoid showing how sick people feel in the midst of technology and bureaucracy, efficiency and exploitation.
The relation between man and his environment is the subject that all Jarva's films have in common. Yö vai päivä and X-paroni deal with the conflict between the purity of nature and the alienation of culture. Onnenpeli contrasts the destruction of city planning and the demands of everyman. In his short documentaries on environmental matters, Asuminen ja luonto ('Housing and nature', 1966) and Kaupungissa on tulevaisuus ('Towns are our future', 1967), Jarva is still optimistic about the relation between man and his environment. This optimistic attitude recedes however in his later films people's choices are reduced, the limits of freedom are reached, and ultimately, in Jäniksen vuosi , the urban environment turns into a prison, and technology into an enemy, even though it was supposed to make man free. The main character in the film escapes to the natural world, until even the escape is proved impossible other than as an imaginary solution. Jarva crystallised his view of the conditions of human life in the notion that man is part of both society and nature, and cannot be separated from either context without violence.
Among the Finnish film directors in the 1960s and 1970s, Jörn Donner was the suave cosmopolite, Erkko Kivikoski the sensitive observer, Rauni Mollberg the primitivist, and Mikko Niskanen the empathetic man. Jarva's profile is the intellectual, introvert, ponderous film-maker a la Finlandaise. Jarva's strengths are his well-thought-out form and structure, his overview, his firm grip of the subject matter, and his purposeful devotion to his quest.
Sakari Toiviainen
Translated by Aili Kämäräinen
Appendix
Risto Antero Jarva, born 15.7.1934 Helsinki, died 16.12.1977 Helsinki. Parents: Rafael Jarva, formerly Jakobsson, Master of Engineering, and Margit Häggström. Wife: 1964 - 1977 Hilkka Marjatta Pyysalo, Master of Arts.
© Biografiakeskus, Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, PL 259, 00171 HELSINKI