The film offers a portrait of Helsinki and Finnish culture, documenting a hundred years of history through the images of the main Finnish directors and documentary makers.
Peter von Bagh revives the silent tradition of the “city symphony”, but while the old classics of the genre confined the action to one day, Helsinki, Forever spans a century with its collage of actuality film, fiction films, paintings, music, and song. The film surveys the city geographically, quarter by quarter, and at the same time historically. The nine decades of the independent Republic of Finland have been eventful and often brutally violent; but rather than getting a neat informative chronology, the viewer experiences the baffling turmoil of history as did those who lived it, and whom we observe, thanks to motion picture film. (DAVID ROBINSON)