✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

You have reached the limit of free articles.


To enjoy unlimited access to Culture Whisper sign up for FREE.
Find out more about Culture Whisper

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy

Each week, we send newsletters and communication featuring articles, our latest tickets invitations, and exclusive offers.

Occasional information about discounts, special offers and promotions.


OR
LOG IN

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

Thanks for signing up to Culture Whisper.
Please check your inbox for a confirmation email and click the link to verify your account.



EXPLORE CULTURE WHISPER
✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy
Forgot your username or password?
Don't have an account? Sign Up

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

If you click «Log in with Facebook» and are not a Culture Whisper user, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and to our Privacy Policy, which includes our Cookie Use

Support Us Login
  • Home
  • Going Out
    • Things to do
    • Food & Drink
    • Theatre
    • Visual Arts
    • Cinema
    • Kids
    • Festival
    • Gigs
    • Dance
    • Classical Music
    • Opera
    • Immersive
    • Talks
  • Staying In
    • TV
    • Books
    • Cook
    • Podcast
    • Design
    • Netflix
  • Life & Style
    • Beauty
    • Fashion
    • Gifting
    • Wellbeing
    • Lifestyle
    • Shopping
    • Jewellery
  • Explore
  • Shopping
  • CW SHOPS
  • Support Us
  • Get Started
  • Tickets
  • CW SHOPS
Get the Best of London Life, Culture and Style
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
Cinema

Tom of Finland film review ★★★★★

11 Aug 17 – 11 Feb 19, Times Vary

'Tom of Finland' drew joyous, taboo-busting gay cartoons, and this biopic tells his story

By CW Contributor on 10/8/2017

Tom of Finland film review
Tom of Finland film review
Tom of Finland film review 4 Tom of Finland film review Matthew Robinson
Once Touko Laaksonen – or ‘Tom of Finland’ as he came to be known – settled on a method, he didn’t deviate from it. In smooth graphite, he rendered his drawings in pretty much the same neatly shaded style for most of his decades-long career. His subject didn’t change much either. It was always sex: sex between the most ludicrously muscular and preposterously endowed men the world has ever seen.



Within those borders, sure, there was plenty of variation. Sometimes the men were dressed as sailors, sometimes they were dressed in motorcycle leathers; their encounters could be in a wooded glade or a bricked alley-way. But the consistency of the particulars outweighed their diversity. There was always sex, and men having it were always square-jawed, hypertrophied, and smiling.


TRY CULTURE WHISPER
Receive free tickets & insider tips to unlock the best of London — direct to your inbox
The smile is important. No matter what a Tom of Finland man is doing – no matter how much concentration it might seem to require – he’s smirking, grinning, beaming. Laaksonen’s cartoons were about the joy of freedom.


So it takes a while to adjust to Dome Karukoski’s biopic, which is a little light on the carefree attitude that the cartoons embody and espouse. Serious, even earnest, there’s not much of the outrageous sexiness and black comedy that you might expect from the story of a man who drew erotic inspiration from the Nazis.




But eventually it’s apparent that Tom of Finland is less about the world of the cartoons and more about the world that necessitated those cartoons – and then had to adjust to their cheerful, unapologetic reality.


Laaksonen’s (Pekka Strang) experiences as a Finnish officer during WWII influenced his drawings in ways both obvious and subtle. Sneaking around in the bushes looking for surreptitious encounters with other soldiers, there was obviously a sense of stifling prohibition, something that chimed curiously with the sense of the forbidden represented by ‘the enemy’. The resulting imagery – of men who look like SS officers but who embrace each other with unpunished abandon – made a wonderful kind of sense, to Laaksonen and to others.


Encouraged by his dancer soul-mate Veli Mäkinen (Lauri Tilkenen) to find an American publisher, Laaksonen sees his drawings find an appreciative audience abroad, particularly in California. But even in this free-love Eden there are problems: the Tom of Finland cartoons ended up being blamed for fanning the flames of the AIDS epidemic.


Its ‘Californian half’ isn’t quite as fascinating as its ‘Finnish half’, but Tom of Finland remains a respectful and well-constructed portrait of the man who’s legacy can still be felt in the gay community.


What Tom of Finland film review
Where Various Locations | MAP
Nearest tube Leicester Square (underground)
When 11 Aug 17 – 11 Feb 19, Times Vary
Price £determined by cinema
Website Click here for more details



Most popular

Things to do in London this weekend. Jake Shears (Emcee) and Company in Cabaret. Photo: Marc Brenner
Things to do in London this weekend: 1–3 December
Regent Street's angels make a welcome return this festive season
The best of the Christmas lights: London 2023 edition
Best exhibition in London now
Top exhibitions on now in London

Editor's Picks

Charlize Theron
Charlize Theron and the spy-thriller journey to Atomic Blonde
Saoirse Ronan - The Host (2013)
The best and worst supernatural love stories
Land of Mine
Land of Mine confronts the aspects of war that Dunkirk avoids
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).

Cinema

World cinema

Biopic

Drama

You might like

  • gods own country film

    God's Own Country film review ★★★★★

  • A Ghost Story film review

    A Ghost Story film review ★★★★★

  • Land of Mine film

    Land of Mine ★★★★★

  • Hounds of Love film review

    Hounds of Love ★★★★★

  • Detroit film review

    Detroit film review ★★★★★

  • Dunkirk film review

    Dunkirk film review ★★★★★



  • The Culture Whisper team
  • Support Us
  • Tickets
  • Contact us
  • Press
  • FAQ
  • Privacy
  • Terms and conditions
  • Cookies
  • Discover
  • Venues
  • Restaurants
  • Stations
  • Boroughs
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
×