Stormskerry Maja

Stormskerry-Maja
Stormskerry Maja

Stormskerry Maja is a new Finnish drama film Moving On, it was directed by Tiina Lymi. The movie is based on the famous ‘Stormskars-Maja’ novels which were written by Anni Blomqvist in 1960 and early 1970s. The film revolves in the 19th century and on the secluded Aaland Islands which lie between Sweden and Finland and features Amanda Jansson as the main character Maja. She is only seventeen and is already forced into marrying a fisherman named Janne. Maja, as a fisherman’s spouse, must learn to live in an environment where her husband spends a lot of time away from home. With time, she rather slowly develops into a tough person, a mother who is completely self-sufficient and who strives through all the challenges that life presents to her with resilience. The movie is a piece of art following her life’s nurturing grind with her many struggles, victories, and losses set in the beautiful yet rugged landscape of the dense group of islands located in the Baltic Sea.

The musical materials for Stormskerry Maja were composed by his great-grandson Lauri who is quite well known in Finland not only as a score for films and TV projects of his own but also as a performer and composer who is engaged in recording works and as a bass guitarist of the power metal band Stratovariuś. This is my first time listening to Porra but I truly hope it is not the last, as it is quite brilliant. Normally this is a type of score I would feature in my ‘under-the-radar’ series, but the music for Stormskerry Maja is such that I wished to give it a slot of its own.

The recording took place in Finland, with the Sinfonia Lahti orchestra and Dalia Stasevska, his wife and conductor. It is such a moving and passionately dramatic interpretation of Maja’s life that one can hardly believe it. Much of the music is, perhaps unexpectedly, warmly romantic, and offers a vibrant depiction of Maja’s roots the land, the sea, her family, and the islands’ culture. I am not so knowledgeable about modern Åland, even less about the details of its past, but the music created by Porra looks like a tender homage paid to the region, its proud inhabitants, and divine windswept landscapes battered by sea storms.

The score carries on the mood through the track for harp and low registration woodwinds, along with the shining metallic percussion on the pieces in “Inner Worlds,” before the more melodic track “Bonfire,” which starts rather tentatively, highlighting some gloomy string textures and later develops into a huge final part that feels bigger than most lullabies in richness. The cues that follow also contain similar elements in Matthew’s case, the introduction of piano and strings functions quite smoothly in “My Life Is Here,” while “Show No Fear” presents rather classical elements that appear tragic, and when it moves to the second half of the cue, the resolve is rather aggressive, lighthearted, and told beautifully. The melancholic focus on horns in “Mikael” does place the cue at an emotional standpoint that is haunting, especially considering they move together with the one-intensity pulse of strings at first, and later “Firstborn” replaces this with light piano and bell-like percussion that depicts Maja’s happiness as a new mother.

It’s a reassuring constant throughout the structure of the new compositions. It’s something perfectly in tune with my ideas about the music something that brings to mind the work of John Barry, announced in the 90s, reflected precisely in the scores of later films, such as The Scarlet Letter or Swept from the Sea or similar where he employed a distinct tone and rhythmic basis to construct mesmerizing musical environments.

Cellist Markus Hohti has also got some nice solo spots in the three “Cello Interlude” pieces and he is even featured in one of them with a guitar. They are probably the most desolate and hopeless of all the tones that Maja has encountered living on the Åland Islands. These are very powerful but rather gloomy at times, almost funeral in character. The good thing is that the impression one gets from Hohti’s connections to such cues like “Building Life” or “We Are Married Now” is stronger and much happier, as they suggest a warmth that develops over the years of the plurality of Maja and Janne’s family. While hearing it I was most of all pleased with the musical construction of ‘We Are Married Now’, where Porri set a soaring and almost festive violin outline against the undulating mournful celli of Hohti.

However, for me, the most remarkable aspect of the score is the response which I find in two cues titled “Driftwood,” a light, attractive, and at some instances, a rather surprisingly cheerful tune. They do not seem to have any relation to the same titled song by his great-grandsire but perhaps named for him. The first of these is based on a gentle action of the pianist Antti Kujanpää concluding with a version of the same theme for string quartet. The second of these is probably the most rewarding of the whole score for it has the same theme re-orchestrated for a bigger more forceful and dramatic sound building for just over two minutes only to be released finally in a series of very satisfying emotional climaxes over a strong brass counterpoint. There is something in the allure of this Driftwood theme that is very beautiful in its own right. It’s classical and lush in the nicest way, but certain things that were done by Porra in the writing make it sound as if it is a piece of ancient rock tune.

As the score progresses, the danger of war is brought to Åland through a chain of naval skirmishes occurring in the Baltic Sea, where the Russian Empire that ruled over Finland at that period was engaged with allied British and French forces. In the ensuing ‘Imperial Entanglement’ which is the first cue to deal with this theme musically, a multifaceted hullabaloo of banging percussion interfaces with the booming low string motifs anticipating the threat which is directed towards Maja and her family’s dreams of a serene lifestyle. The cold and haunting mediated glass sounds in “Ice” portray a certain level of loneliness while “Perilous Journey” brings out harsh jarring piano chords, all culminating in the fierce turbulent, and jangled noise of “Drowning”.

The ending of “Way Home” is, however, pleasant as it features a powerful and heartwarming version of the primary theme which gives closure to the narrative. The closing scene ‘Myrskyluodon Maija’ is not an original composition for the film. It is instead a fresh arrangement of the theme from the Finnish TV show Myrskyluodon Maija, made in 1975, which was in fact also based on the original novels by Anni Blomqvist. Filled in the opening sequence of the series, this theme is performed by Lasse Martenson, and it’s likely to be one of the popular TV theme songs in Finland. I have never seen it or heard it until this frame. It is indeed beautiful: grand and moving with a beautiful central theme, and superb orchestral arrangements by Porra and Vili Robert Ollila.

Without any shred of doubt, I can say that Stormskerry Maja definitely is one of the best books out there. Sure, some readers might think the rather dark undertones of the book can be difficult to read, but personally, I felt that those latter moments in Maja’s life made the pleasurable ones stand out even more, especially in remarkable pieces such as “Driftwood II”. It is very broad, very melodic, and at some points very nice, and it seems to me that besides Tuomas Kantelinen, Panu Aaltio, and Pessi Levanto, I will also add Lauri Porra to the list of instantly memorable film composers from Finland.

For More Movies Like Stormskerry Maja Visit on 123movies

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top