In Finnish film They Have Escaped, director Jukka-Pekka Valkeapää, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Pilvi Peltola, offers a dark and unsettling look into youthful rebellion. His portrait is filled with contrasts and volatility, but what remains consistent is the disconcerting mood that pervades throughout – it is somehow both familiar and alienating. The film may not always be readily accessible, but it is this absorbing, strange atmosphere that makes Valkeapää’s portrayal atypically intriguing, and what distinguishes his insights of the misunderstandings between youth and adults from the more clichéd perspectives found in other films. 
We are introduced to painfully shy and withdrawn 19-year-old Joni (Teppo Manner) on his first day at a centre for troubled youth. He is there as punishment for going AWOL during his mandatory military service. Nonchalantly enigmatic, and with a stutter, he prefers to remain disengaged from all those around him, until he almost runs over 17-year-old Raisa (Roosa Söderholm), one of the centre’s more aggressive and temperamental residents. After they strike up an inexplicable friendship of sorts they decide to hightale it on a roadtrip where they can indulge their youthful whims. However, their adventure eventually takes a sudden and irreversible dark turn when they are found trespassing on a private island, and here the film takes on distinctly bleak and confronting overtones.
The duet of lead performances is strong, both natural and unaffected despite playing wildly contrasting characters. Together, they draw out the differences between Joni’s naive demeanour and Raisa’s raw, visceral unpredictability with a confident ease. However, what unites them is a yearning for freedom, and this is juxtaposed with the adult-imposed order and restraint that they encounter and are trying to escape. The cinematography is fantastic in portraying these thematic contrasts. There are several fantastic sequences that are mesmerizing in their portrayal of dreamy innocence, but there also scenes that are foreboding and menacing in their uncompromising depictions of cruelty. On both counts the unsettling score complements the film’s distinct visual style.
Overall, Valkeapää has managed to be both direct and ambiguous in his exploration of the misunderstandings between youth and adults, which also seem to reflect the audience’s experience of the film – there is the lingering feeling of something remaining intangible, out of reach, incomprehensible. They Have Escaped is strangely engrossing, at times confusing and even confronting, but it has a dreamy vision that makes it worthwhile.
They Have Escaped is screening at the 2015 Scandinavian Film Festival.
