Kirje - The Letter (2015)
Warning: spoilers.
Kirje - The Letter (2015) is a short film paying homage to film noir, the "hardboiled" crime movies of the 1940s and 50s.
”Palo is the trusted man for the elder Boss who runs a criminal organisation. A letter meant only for the eyes of The Boss is delivered to Palo by the mysterious Courier. Asking for no one's permission, Palo opens the letter... and is in for a shock. Soon Palo finds himself in a web of betrayal and corruption, leading to the inevitable fatal outcome.”
The film was made at the media workshop of Pispalan Kumppanuus (the Pispala Partnership Association), which was active at the time, named after Tampere’s Pispala district, which forms a larger area together with its neighbouring Tahmela and Pyynikki. At the time the media workshop facilities were located at Pispala Library, at the intersection of Hirvikatu and Tahmelankatu, just opposite the volunteer-run art centre Hirvitalo.
I had started at the media workshop in November 2013. I dabbled with all sorts of miscellaneous creative work there, between writing and photography. I gradually also got to try videography and editing. At some point, musician Janne Perttula, who has played in bands such as Ultra Noir, joined the media workshop. As a solo artist, under the name Heroin and Your Veins, Perttula created smoky instrumental music, favouring retro-style suits and hats even as his everyday clothes, so much so that he had earned the nickname Dillinger. He had already made some of his own video experiments before.
It turned out that we both liked old film noir films. The short film Kirje – The Letter, a tale of murder and betrayal, began to emerge. I wrote the screenplay myself and shared the directing credit with Perttula, who was also responsible for the film's editing and post-production and played the main character Palo. Other actors for the film were recruited from close circles. The role of the Boss was played by 67-year-old Rauno Kangastalo (1947 - 2018), who had acted in the Parsi Theatre of amateurs from Hervanta district. Perttula's girlfriend Marika Makara played Laura. Vesa Lehtinen from Pispala Library was in the role of the dead bodyguard.
There were no professional actors available. I had to play the role of the Lieutenant myself. I filmed my part at home with a Sony camcorder. Mercifully, my character was only visible as a dark silhouette throughout the film. In practice, I played the role as a voice actor.
The Lieutenant’s articulation was inspired by the Pentecostal preacher Leo Meller, who once spread his message on C-cassettes. These can now be listened to on YouTube. Meller, who spoke in a low throaty voice, used a kind of suggestively paused speech rhythm in his sermons, which could have a downright hypnotic effect if the listener was susceptible to the effects in the right way. It was good, for example, to scare sinners with hellfire or warn them about the dangers of heavy metal music.
The shooting for the film began in June 2014 and ended in early November 2014. In Tampere, the filming took place at the Pispala Library in Tahmela district, the lunch café Soppa ja Soosi (“The Soup and Sauce”) at Pispalan valtatie, Pispala’s main road, in Pyynikin Trikoo factory area, and outside the main location, mostly interior shots in the districts of South Hervanta and Epilä, also midtown Tampere.
The importance of local geography to the film cannot be underestimated, even though the film is not a documentary about the districts of Pispala, Tahmela and Pyynikki (especially as we are used to seeing the area in various works and texts devoted to local history), but the images and moods captured here are purely subordinated to serve the black and white film noir fantasy of the story. Still, it can be said that Kirje – The Letter would have become a fundamentally different film if the filming location had happened to be somewhere else. However, something of the spirit of the place itself was captured in the film, although it is difficult to define exactly what.
Kirje - The Letter could be called a do-it-yourself film and the way it was produced could be described as a kind of guerrilla film-making. If any film professional reads this text, they are free to roll their eyes, laugh with pity or contempt at our antics, but as someone wise has said, "It is what it is". It was not until I was admitted to the Film and TV Department of the Voionmaa Institute a few years later that the available filming equipment became more professional and I got a little bit of a real feel for what proper filmmaking is.
Compared to my later short film projects, the making took place on a very spontaneous and amateurish basis. There were no supervising teachers or a producer. The screenplay was not reviewed and revised in a group, and the filming was not carefully planned and scheduled in advance. There were no “call sheets” (which contain precise information about the filming of individual scenes, the times when certain actors need to be present and when filming will begin, and so on).
Of course, shooting dates were agreed in advance and some kind of storyboards were drawn on paper. The shooting took place whenever the necessary people were available and the costumes and props needed for the filming were also present. But there was no such precise and systematic advance planning as in later, more “professional” film projects. Things just started rolling and that was it.
Kirje - The Letter was shot on a zero budget, without any professional filming equipment or studio facilities. It was decided from the very beginning to make the film in black and white. Converting the colour video to monochrome was also a merciful solution that could partially compensate for the technical shortcomings.
A Sony HD camcorder was the main shooting camera that both Perttula and I used. With automatic exposure, the video image achieved a surprisingly high level of resolution even in low light, although graininess could not be completely avoided. The rest of the footage was filmed by Alper “Allu” Sevgör from media workshop with his own DSLR camera.
The lighting was done with a detached bright fluorescent lamp from a desk, which could be placed on its side to create film noir/chiaroscuro style steep shadows in the image. In addition, some small battery-operated LED lights were used, which of course could not illuminate a wide area of the image. The flickering LEDs created the impression of a police van driving past Palo on a night street.
In addition to the images themselves, the film Kirje – The Letter was largely created by Janne Perttula's music, but also by sound design. Ready-made sound effects were used there, though there were also some Foley sounds we had recorded ourselves.
I taped the sound with a handheld Zoom recorder which was used for all dialogue in the film. I think we hardly used any actual location sound recording for the dialogue. It was more likely the lines would be recorded in advance and then added to the lip-sync in post-production. This idea was used by Risto Jarva in his film Onnenpeli (1965). (Of course, this is a problematic method, as every editor who has ever struggled to get the dialogue to match lip-sync knows.) Or then, the on-location sound was recorded with Zoom, which required that the recorder be close enough to the actor when taping. I can't recall which method was actually used the most during the filming. Of course, we didn't have any shotgun microphones or booms, let alone a lapel mic.
Kirje - The Letter is a stylistic pastiche. The mannerisms of classic film noir were unflinchingly assimilated, such as the steep shadows on the walls and the use of the so-called Dutch angle (or canted/oblique angle, a camera shot where the viewer feels like their head is tilted), among other things. The original film noir had adopted its visual style from the German Expressionism of the silent film era. The ideas for the images in Kirje - The Letter were stolen from at least Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock and Sergio Leone. David Lynch, especially his Eraserhead (1977), also haunts the images of our short, as well as the sound design in Lynch’s film (various industrial and traffic noises were sought, among other things). Jean-Pierre Melville is certainly present, at least in spirit and as a memory. When we are in Finland, of course Aki Kaurismäki is there too.
I filmed the B-roll in Tampere’s traditional factory milieu. One night I spent a lot of time just on the lookout and finally managed to get some shots of a police van with its emergency lights on, driving along the street. I remember standing for a long time on the street near Pyynikki’s old trolleybus hall, just waiting for a police car to drive by with its flashing lights on. As it happened, Perttula was out on his bike that very night, saw me with my camera on the side of the road and must have grinned at my antics. At the railyard of Tampere Railway Station, I was also lucky to catch some footage of the local city rabbits, also a crow walking on the streets of Pispala. Both these play the role of a kind of totem animal in the film and its dreamlike narrative.
In the summer of 2014, we filmed the opening scene in front of the Pispala Library, where the Courier gives Palo a letter. The police officers passing by in their car watched the filming with interest. It is not known whether it was clear to them that this was indeed a film shoot, or whether the characters looked like real gangsters to them.
Sometimes a film script begins to emerge from a single mental image, around which an entire story then grows. For me, this image was of a lone figure moving in a dark corridor and showing his way forward with a flashlight. There was such a corridor in the basement of the Pispala Library, and this image ended up in the film. Perttula completed the sequence by filming in the bicycle shed of his own apartment building in Epilä district.
For those who tend to look for inconsistencies in the story in films, gaps in the plot, I can tell you that, like in many works of film noir, the story in Kirje - The Letter is oneiric, dreamlike. It does not follow any linear logic, but rather that of a dream. Dreams tend to reflect the wishes and fears of the dreamer, and it’s the themes of guilt and betrayal that shape the emotional landscape of Kirje - The Letter.
This is not a documentary film, not a realistic depiction of the criminal world. The Boss does indeed call from a landline Palo’s mobile phone, which he takes out of his pocket, but instead of using an encrypted email or text message, the criminals here communicate with each other using old-fashioned paper letters delivered by courier. The vintage-style clothing of the underworld characters in the film does not follow current street fashion. The characters do not speak current street slang. Kirje - The Letter takes place in a kind of Kaurismäki-esque retro-style reality that partly looks like a bygone world, partly not.
The story and the character of the Lieutenant were largely inspired by the criminal case of Jari Aarnio, who used to lead the police drug squad, and which was constantly in the Finnish news at the time. The Aarnio case was, however, only a conceptual starting point for the plot of Kirje - The Letter. Otherwise, the film does not find any common ground with this confusing tangle of events in real life, of which there can be found many different truths, depending on who is the narrator at the time. The screenplay also drew some inspiration from Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant (1992). Although the extremes of Harvey Keitel's character were not exactly imitated in Kirje - The Letter. There was no way we could film a story that would be too raunchy within the framework of a publicly supported media workshop.
The series of numbers that the Boss recites at the beginning of the film were inspired by Cold War mythology. The Boss knows that the police are listening to his calls. So, he uses a code. The number stations are unidentified radio stations around the world. Their broadcasts consist only of repeated series of numbers and letters, recited by anonymous male or female voices. It is assumed that these are coded messages to spies or military information. Wartime number stations (which the British used to transmit coded messages to the French resistance fighters) also inspired Jean Cocteau when he made his 1950 film Orpheus.
Russian gangster boss Kuznetsov has learned that Palo is acting as the Lieutenant's henchman and informer. The Lieutenant has somehow gained the upper hand over Palo. Without the Lieutenant's intervention, Palo would face a prison sentence. And going to prison would put Palo's life in danger, as too many criminals inside the jail swear revenge on him. So, Palo is now the Lieutenant's spy inside the Boss's organisation.
The Boss is also interested in Laura, Palo's young girlfriend. Tired of the constant sleet in Finland, Laura is also willing to join the Boss on his journey to the warmer south. Palo has enough motive to betray the Boss.
Kuznetsov (who is not seen in the film) is some kind of associate of the Boss, perhaps even a friend, but the connections between them are not revealed any further. In any case, Kuznetsov is loyal to the Boss. He can even be called the only reliable character in the whole story. Perhaps it is an old debt of honour. Kuznetsov has the Courier deliver a letter to Palo, which he in turn must take to the Boss. In this way, Palo is forced to directly admit his guilt to the Boss, in front of a merciless summary court. However, before this happens, Palo opens the letter, sees its contents and avoids his own death sentence. Before Palo will have to face the consequences, the Lieutenant has time to murder the Boss.
”Someone has snitched. They promised to tell me the snitch’s name in a letter they were going to bring me.”
We met one evening in September 2014 near the old factory site of Pyynikin Trikoo, around sunset, after 8 p.m. We filmed the character of Palo moving around the courtyard between the factory buildings and climbing the outer steps of the Pispala Theatre building. Coincidentally, the timing was perfect in the shot, where the lights of a car moving in the courtyard hit Palo directly. There were narrow alleys between the factory buildings, which were used to film Palo's wanderings, as well as his movement on the footpath passing the residential buildings. Palo was supposedly going in through the door of one of the factory buildings to meet the Boss.
The Pispala Theatre, which operated under the same umbrella as Pispalan Kumppanuus, was at that time based in the premises of Pyynikin Trikoo, at Pyynikintie 25. Suomen Trikoo (“Finnish Tricot”) was a Tampere-based textile industry company that operated from 1903 to 2005. The Pyynikki factory of Suomen Trikoo was located on the shores of Lake Pyhäjärvi until 2002. Hotel owner and merchant Nikolai Bauer's hosiery and tricot factory had started in the area as early as 1890. The Pyynikki factory area expanded to its final size in the 1930s-50s. The production of tricot and knitwear products had gradually ended by the 1980s-90s.
After the end of industrial activity, a number of small businesses, artists and craftsmen operated in the area. The Pispala Theatre was forced to close its operations in the Pyynikin Trikoo premises in March 2017. The factory buildings have since been renovated into apartments. In addition, the area has now opened its doors to bars and restaurants, a gym, a microbrewery and other services.
The neighbouring Pyynikinharju Ridge is a lush, green forest area, which is only a short drive from the Tahmela district. The traditional Varala Sports Institute is also nearby. The city bus runs from here between Tahmela and the city centre. The passenger gets an extra heartbeat every time the bus accelerates and curves along the winding road on the southern slope of Pyynikinharju Ridge, from the edge of which there is a scary-looking steep drop down to Lake Pyhäjärvi. The Pyynikki area is the home of many ghost stories. The ghost of a sea captain has been seen on the slope of the ridge, among other things, and is said to stare out at the lake. According to the story, there is still an engraving of the name of the captain's ship and the year on the slope near the Pyynikki Observation Tower.
The Pispala district (which includes Upper and Lower Pispala) borders Tahmela to the south, Pyynikki to the east, Hyhky to the west, and both the Tampere–Pori railway and Santalahti to the north. Tahmela is considered its own district between Upper Pispala and Pyynikki on the shores of Lake Pyhäjärvi, although it is difficult to find any actual boundary markers between Pispala and Tahmela when moving around the area. However, according to map information, the Tahmelan Viertotie road separates Tahmela from Upper Pispala, the street Isolähteenkatu from Lower Pispala, and Pyynikintie road from Pyynikki.
The Pispala-Tahmela area could be considered its own village within Tampere, located within walking distance of the city centre. The area has largely undergone gentrification, and the nouveau riche have moved into the area, which was previously known for its poor workers and bohemians. The poet Lauri Viita and the writer Hannu Salama are both Pispala residents. Petty criminals lurked in the area, and illicit liquor was sold. Tauno Kaukonen's classic novel Klaani (“The Clan”) from 1963 aptly describes this world. Mika Kaurismäki adapted the book into a film in 1984.
The slopes of Pispalanharju Ridge are like something made for movies. The area is full of cultural sites, each one more magnificent than the last. However, considering its uniqueness, Pispala has not been used too much in films. In addition to the aforementioned film The Clan - Tale of the Frogs, Pispala has been seen at least in the comedy series Kyllä isä osaa and in the TV adaptation of Hannu Salama's novel Siinä näkijä, missä tekijä. Even the British synthpop group Human League used Pispala's landscapes in their 2011 video ’Night People’.
I spent a lot of time in the Pispala-Tahmela landscape during my stint at the media workshop. The old detached houses had now been renovated, the walls of the houses had fresh paint, and expensive sports cars were parked in the yards.
According to a survey conducted by local morning paper Aamulehti in 2025 (AL, 17 August 2025), Tahmela is the most affluent residential area in Tampere. However, in the same survey, the neighbouring area Pispala was only in 29th place.
According to Kaisa Hynynen, a researcher at the University of Tampere who was interviewed for an article in Aamulehti, Tahmela's ranking as the most affluent residential area in Tampere is at least due to the fact that the area has a relatively high number of well-off households, families with children, and single-family homes and owner-occupied housing, and people stay in the area for a long time.
According to the residents themselves, Tahmela is a communal area where both wealthy and less affluent people live. In Pispala-Tahmela, punk rockers frequenting the Vastavirta club and the Musta Pispala festival, hippies and all kinds of artists live side by side with wealthier people. Although one can ask how long the coexistence of two different worlds can continue.
"Tää on viimeinen tilaisuus / Nyt soi vain Lapio-Blues."
(”This is your last chance / Now to the Shovel Blues you will dance.”)
The final post-production work on the film was completed in February 2015. Janne Perttula composed the film's theme music and the rest of its soundtrack. Perttula performs the song 'Lapio-Blues' (‘The Shovel Blues’) with Jere Kilpinen. This tune, co-written and sung by Kilpinen, is heard in the scene where Palo opens the letter in a lunch café. With its early-1960s surf guitar sound favoured by Finnish bands of the era and some death-tinged lyrics, that were often found in domestic schlagers, it is yet another reference in Kirje – The Letter to the world of Kaurismäki's films.
It is difficult to pinpoint why Kirje - The Letter was such a successful piece of work, especially since it was the first short film I had ever made. Of course, the image resolution could have been better, of course the underexposure (because proper lighting wasn't used) made some of the shots grainy, but in the end, the technical roughness actually worked to the advantage of the expression. The genre had apparently been well internalised. The shortcomings of the filming equipment were compensated for with ideas. The visual and audio design had been thought out. The filming was done from a tripod or other support, and handheld shooting was hardly used. (In other words, the shaky camera work, which is a nuisance in many amateur productions, should not be a problem here.) Janne Perttula spent so much time editing and creating the film's sound design that people at Pispalan Kumppanuus were already starting to get nervous about why the film wasn't getting ready.
The 14-minute film was well received. In April 2015, we were able to present it at the Pispala Vilkkari Off event at Haulitehdas (Pispala Shot Factory). Kirje – The Letter was also offered to the Tampere Short Film Festival, but was not selected for the competition. At the time of writing, the film has collected almost 19,000 views on YouTube.
Not everyone was enthusiastic about Kirje - The Letter, though. I remember when we showed the finished film at the media workshop to a young graphic artist who specialised in sci-fi illustrations. He published them on the DeviantArt website. When the film was over, he mostly had a blank, bemused look in his eyes. So, this is all? Maybe he had expected Kirje - The Letter to have the traditional elements of a thriller: gun fights, car chases, explosions. Our melancholic, relatively slow-paced film couldn't offer him those.
This made me think about the horizon of expectation of the average filmgoer today. If I get to make more thriller-type films in the future, should I load them with non-stop action, so as not to alienate my viewers who live in a world of short attention spans, who are used to this kind of film narrative when watching Hollywood blockbusters? Or maybe I should just focus on some other type of stories, after all. However, this incident was still on my mind when I started developing a sequel to Kirje - The Letter at the end of 2015, but as Kipling said, that is another story.
Pispalan Kumppanuus ry. has now ceased operations. So has the lunch café Soppa ja Soosi at the Pispalan valtatie, where Palo opens the letter. Pispala Library operated in Tahmela from 1997 to 2017.
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