Tom of Finland (2017): Karukoski’s Biopic of Finnish Creator of Homoerotic Art (Gay)

Directed by Dome Karukoski and written by Aleksi Bardy, Tom of Finland is a dramatic biopic, starring Pekka Strang as Touko Laaksonen, better known as Tom of Finland.

Tom of Finland

Tom was a Finnish homoerotic artist, and one of the most influential and celebrated figures of twentieth century LGBTQ culture.

His distinctively stylized homoerotic drawings and illustrations were rendered in grayscale graphite, often featuring leather-uniformed men with exaggerated musculature and genitalia (tights pants, bubbly butts, huge cocks). The deliberate imagery depicts handsome men, whose poses (0ften on motorcycles) suggest, imply, and sometimes perform overtly sexual activities.

The movie was selected as the Finnish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, but it was not nominated.

Touko Laaksonen, a decorated officer, returns home after a harrowing and heroic experience serving his country in World War II. But life in Finland during peacetime proves equally distressing. He finds post-war Helsinki rampant with homophobic persecution, with gay men being pressured to marry women and have children.

Touko finds refuge in a liberating art: homoerotic drawings of muscular men, free of inhibitions.

But it is only when an American publisher sees them and invites Tuoko over to the West Coast that his life really takes a turn.

Gay Directors, Gay Films? By Emanuel Levy (Columbia University Press).

Walking free and proud in Los Angeles, Tuoko dives into the sexual revolution, and in the process becoming an icon and a rallying point. His work–made famous by his signature ‘Tom of Finland’–became the emblem of a generation of men and fanned the flames of the gay revolution.

Considering that the subect was a subversive artist, Tom of Finland plays it too safe, based on an oddly tasteful and venerable approach.

Indeed, once Laaksonen achieves success and finds domestic happiness with a ballet dancer, the film loses its verve and beco,es too conventional.

End result is a biopic that’s too mild-mannered and low-key rather than being a more transgressive representation of the an artist who created a fetish art form. You never gets a real sense of Tom’s self-awareness of the impact he had on certain gay subculture.

One of Finland’s acclaimed directors, Dome Karukoski, born in 1976, has been named one of Variety’s Top 10 Directors to Watch and his films have gathered numerous international awards. Winner of several Finnish National Film Awards, and Best Director for Dark Butterflies and Lapland Odyssey.

After Tom of Finalnd, Karukoski directed in 2019 a film about author J.R.R. Tolkien, depicting his formative years as a teenager and as young man during the First World War.

Credits

Directed by Dome Karukoski
Produced by Aleksi Bardy, Miia Haavisto, Annika Sucksdorff

Screenplay by Aleksi Bardy
Music by Hildur Guðnadóttir, Lasse EnersenCinematography Lasse Frank
Edited by Harri YlönenDistributed by Protagonist Pictures (international)Release date: January 27, 2017 (Gothenburg Film Festival), February 2017 (general release)

Tom of Finland (2017): Karukoski’s Biopic of Finnish Creator of Homoerotic Art (Gay)

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