Marjut Rimminen

Short films

Learned by Heart / Sydämeen kätketty

2007 · Animated documentary · 29 minutes

A film by Marjut Rimminen and Päivi Takala

Password: Marjut. The film contains material with rights restrictions.
Still from Learned by Heart, vintage wedding photograph

Finland emerged from the Second World War in a schizophrenic state, having survived two wars against the Soviet Union with her independence intact, but having officially come out on the losing side. The film explores post-war adjustment in five episodes, examining how fathers struggled with civilian life after combat while mothers took control of household organisation.

Still from Learned by Heart, anti-Vietnam protest

A charged and deeply personal creative collaboration with composer and co-director Päivi Takala that steps unflinchingly into the charged territory of generational relations, historical amnesia and the secret agendas of the human heart.

Mark Webber, Secret Cinema, March 2007
Still from Learned by Heart, figure walking in snow with handwritten text
A drawn woman in a pink hat leans on the railing of a long photographed pier. A woman's portrait in a white peaked cap over sunlit green leaves, a man's face at right. A drawn blonde woman in a pink hat over a grainy photograph of two young men. A cut-out photograph of a woman in a white dress and cap holding roses among birches. A woman in a dark coat walks towards the camera down a street strewn with rubble beside bombed buildings. Children in knitted hats climb one behind another out of a narrow passage between rough timber walls. Close portrait of a woman in a fur hat and fur-collared coat, blurred figures behind her. A wooden house burns with high flames and black smoke while a figure runs past through snow. Four soldiers in field caps and long coats stand among bare branches in pale misty light. A drawn woman in a floral dress stands in a summer yard, another figure on the house steps. A soldier with a rucksack embraces a woman in a room, the whole frame tinted pink. A girl in a red jumper holds a white teddy bear beside a boy in a kitchen. A small boy in a white shirt reaches into the open door of a glowing stove. A woman in an apron sits in a corner and raises one finger, two children beside her. A thick red drop hangs from the underside of a dark red woollen shape against white. Two children carry armfuls of firewood across deep snow past a wooden barn. A child sits in a wooden sledge in the snow outside a log house, another walks past in red. A pale translucent figure with a round head hangs bent over a misty green field. A fair-haired girl looks straight at the camera from behind the edge of a white door frame. Seen from behind, a woman in a striped blouse and crossed apron straps lifts both hands to her hair. A young woman in a patterned dress sits with one hand at her collar, looking away. Tinted red, a man with tousled hair drinks from a glass among bottles on a table. A dark coat hangs over a chair at a red checked table, brown shoes on the floor. A fair-haired girl rests her chin on her hands beside a pale doorframe, looking out. In a wooden kitchen a woman in an apron leans over the table setting a plate and glass. A girl in a red cardigan holds a door handle while a blurred figure stands beyond. A red accordion floats half submerged in dark water below white rapids. In a railway carriage a woman sits with a small boy, uniformed men framed in doorways behind. A moustached man in uniform writes at a desk while a child nearby looks up. A girl in a red cardigan sits on a wooden bench, looking up and away. A woman in a floral dress holds a baby on a train bench, a bespectacled girl beside her. Girls in swimsuits jump with their arms raised on a flat rock beside the sea. A fair-haired girl looks out through a red-framed window, water reflected in the glass. A red accordion floats on a still lake at dusk, trees reflected in the water. A child's face at a window, white crosses reflected in the glass above a red sill. A person lies curled asleep on a train bench, sea and gulls beyond the window. A small wooden bed with a floral quilt and a flip-flop lie on a shingle beach. Framed black and white photographs on a mantelpiece: a man in uniform, a man holding a baby. A fair-haired child in a red cardigan looks sideways, lit against a black background. Doll heads with open mouths sit along a pale stone balustrade in a classical stair hall. An old doll with moulded hair and blue eyes stands before tall windows, other dolls behind. Boys watch a man beside a projection screen in a dark room; the screen reads "VIISAUDEN". Rows of dolls in pink dresses fill a classroom; a man with a pointer stands at the blackboard. Doll heads fill a pale blue room under a pendant lamp, a framed portrait on the wall. A blurred dark grey jacket over a white shirt and dark tie, cropped above the collar. Two dolls in dusty pink dresses walk through a pale hall past a fluted column. Two dolls in checked dresses stand close together, wood panelling behind them, in black and white. Two small figures in dresses walk in silhouette through an archway towards a sunlit courtyard. Two dolls in checked dresses stand at the foot of a dim stone staircase. Snow falls past a tall stepped building; a red flag with hammer and sickle flies from the roof. A dense crowd in winter hats and coats, with one dark red balloon among the heads. Marchers fill a city street beneath a red banner with white Finnish lettering, partly cut off. A crowd of women and children in coats and hats lines a street outside a stone building. A fair-haired child in a red knitted cardigan and white collar looks past the camera. A dark suit jacket and waistcoat with no head above the collar, on a patterned sofa. A grey knitted garment lies crumpled on a dark patterned sofa, seen very close. Two hands wind bright yellow yarn into a ball against red cloth and patterned wallpaper. A girl stands behind a pine trunk watching two boys lean together over their bicycles. A young girl with long pale hair smiles, half hidden beside the bark of a tree. A round mirror reflects a smiling girl in a patterned dress, the only colour in a grey room. A girl in a pearl necklace raises a hand to her hair in front of a round mirror. A girl in a black dress and lace gloves poses inside an oval frame, captioned “Kim Novak”. A girl holds out the skirt of a polka-dot dress inside an oval frame, captioned “Shirley Temple”. A drawn blonde figure seen from behind faces a night city of neon signs, one reading “Maxim”. A woman in a white headdress holds a newborn baby, daisies and a faint second face superimposed. A flat drawn figure in red with piled-up hair stands before dim photographed faces in a crowd. A drawn girl in a red dress and pigtails holds a black handbag before a seated audience. A small figure in a red dress stands on a street corner below a "Kinopalatsi" cinema sign. A drawn woman in a floral dress in a sunlit yard, a wooden house and pram behind. A girl in pearls and a polka-dot dress looks aside; pinned photographs cover the wall behind her. A small drawn figure in red beside a lit advertising column, men and a bicycle at night. Brick chimneys stand among snow-covered rubble of a destroyed building, snow falling across the frame. A man and a woman stand by a film poster lettered “McNALLY”, a drawn red figure beside them. A face above thick knitted woollens, only the eyes and eyebrows showing, snow falling around it. A banner on a floodlit columned building reads “Vallankumous yliopistolla on alkanut!” above silhouetted heads. A drawn woman in a pink hat and dress stands in a bus aisle among seated passengers. A drawn girl in red seen from behind watches a group of young men on a night street. Seen from above, women sit along a dance hall wall while men stand watching, one figure drawn red. A drawn baby cries in a black pram on a rug, a dog lying beside it. A wall of split firewood stacked end on, with snowflakes falling in front of it. A drawn woman in a miniskirt and black boots dances among silhouettes on a pink swirling background. A child in a striped jumper stands in deep snow among birch trees, face turned upwards. Close-up of a child in a knitted hat, head tipped back, tongue out to catch snow. People in coats and hats push through heavy snowfall on a city street, one carrying an umbrella. A fair-haired girl in a red cardigan hugs a pillow on wooden stairs, half behind a door frame. A man in work overalls stands beside a large control panel covered with dials and painted pipework diagrams. Close view of an old radio, its tuning dial panel white with one section tinted yellow. Several people in hats and dark coats stand in near darkness, their lit faces in profile. A pale globe floats in darkness above a red band with a metal dog's head badge. A man and a woman laugh together behind a laid table of coffee cups and pastries. A family of five poses in a living room around a radio topped with a small Finnish flag. A line-drawn living room with patterned wallpaper, a standard lamp and a small television showing blue static. A crowd of adults and children in coats and hats queues along a wall, tinted blue. A woman, a laughing young girl and a man in a suit sit together on a sofa. A wooden television set on legs shows a newsreader at a desk, captioned "Kauko Saarentaus". Three figures stand against a wall wearing paper bags over their heads and bright yellow coats. A child's face behind glass, rows of small white crosses reflected across it. Rows of figures from behind, heads patterned like fingerprints, face a building inscribed “Herran pelko on viisauden alku”.

Credits

Screenplay
Marjut Rimminen, Päivi Takala
Direction
Marjut Rimminen, Päivi Takala
Cinematography
Marjut Rimminen, Kari Sohlberg
Editing
Tony Fish
Sound
Patrick Boullenger, Päivi Takala
Music
Päivi Takala
Producer
Anna-Kaisa Sukura for Soundsgood Productions Oy
Executive producer
Päivi Takala for Soundsgood Productions Oy
Broadcast
YLE

Screenings and broadcasts

  • At Animateka, Kinodvor, Ljubljana, 7 to 13 December 2009, in the Finnish focus programme

Retrospectives

Writing about the work

  • Learned by Heart, Some Protection: Annabelle Honess Roe, Animated Documentary 2013, Palgrave Macmillan. Learned by Heart is a case study of the chapter Animated Memories (pages 146 to 150 and 154 to 155): the film "disrupts any simple understanding of its superficially nostalgic aesthetic as reactionary or sentimental", and the afterword returns to how "Rimminen reconciles her childhood with the social evolution of Finland" (169). Some Protection is placed in the Blind Justice series (page 13); Marjut is among the filmmakers the book thanks for interviews
  • Learned by Heart: Paul Wells, Never Mind the Bollackers: Here's the Repositories, Sites and Archives in Nonfiction Animation, in Jonathan Murray and Nea Ehrlich (eds), Drawn from Life: Issues and Themes in Animated Documentary Cinema 2018, Edinburgh University Press, pages 114 to 116, drawing on Wells's own 2007 interview with Marjut: the film is "an exploration of post-Second World War Finland seen through the perception of a young girl, but also the specific form of perception in the moment as it is later remembered", and "even more sophisticated in this respect. The film falls, however, between disciplinary stools in a way that dictates only a partial recognition of its achievements"
  • Marjut Rimminen: Giannalberto Bendazzi, Animation: A World History, Volume III: Contemporary Times 2016, CRC Press: a biographical paragraph in the chapter on Great Britain (pages 71 to 72), from the 1968 graduation and Vivante's Zagreb award through Halas and Batchelor, the commercials for Finland, The Stain, Urpo & Turpo, Many Happy Returns, Mixed Feelings and Red Ribbon to Learned by Heart, with a still from it; and a passage in the Finland chapter (page 135): Learned by Heart "x-rays the country's history through the eyes of a child"
  • The Stain, Learned by Heart: Meghan Annette Gilbride, Memory Migrations: Bringing the Past to Life in Contemporary Animated Film 2012, PhD thesis, University College London: both films in the corpus of animated non-fiction of personal remembrance
  • Learned by Heart: Bella Honess Roe, Animated Memories 2013, Animation Studies 2.0, Society for Animation Studies: the film as an animated documentary that recalls the past

Get in touch

For festival and screening enquiries, teaching, masterclasses, or correspondence:

marjut.rimminen@gmail.com