Imaginaries of a Global Finland—Patterns of Globalization in Finnish National Cinema

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The cinema of Finland exemplifies many of the complex patterns in which globalization impacts normative conceptualizations of national cinema. Conceiving of these processes in terms of glocalization enables us to understand these processes in polyphonal and contradictory terms instead of the more traditional homogeneous or convergent theoretical frameworks of national cinema. Interrogating well-known concepts such as the national, the local, the transnational, the supranational, and the postnational enables us to highlight some of the predominant ways in which cultural producers negotiate globalization. To explore how strategies of containment work alongside increasing cross-border flow and transnational interaction, the article discusses the works of well-known directors such as Markku Pölönen, Aki Kaurismäki, Aku Louhimies and A-J Annila. Jadesoturi [Jade Warrior] (2005), a Finnish-Chinese kung-fu production, forms the ultimate case study as it exemplifies many of the opportunities and obstacles that cultural producers face when entering the global marketplace.