The Way You Wanted Me

One of Teuvo Tulio's darkest films, shot under the long shadow of World War Two, this uncompromising weepy follows a young woman from her rural idyll to the harsh realities of city life. Without the land and her family to support her she soon falls prey to prostitution, alcoholism and pregnancy. Tulio, consumed by his recurring theme of lost virtue, illustrates with searing passion her fall into misery and degradation at the hands of an uncaring male dominated society, implying that this is the fate society has in store for any woman who dares to try and take control of her own sexual destiny.

Tulio is a Finnish national treasure but his films remain tragically unknown in the UK. The Way You Wanted Me is one of four of his seminal works restored by the Finnish National Archive and screening in our Teuvo season. Specialising in the much-maligned genre of Melodrama and heavily influenced by Cukor, Lubitsch and Von Sternberg, his spectacular depictions of suffering and sex cast a deep shadow into the works of subsequent directors such as Aki Kaurismäki and Guy Maddin. As Finnish scholar Anu Koivunen explains, "Tulio was both an idealist and a producer of cheap films" which are at once cries for justice and hugely entertaining epics.