My original review was written in November 1980 after a screening in NYC at MoMA:
Touted as Finland's first animated feature film, "Seven Brothers" (1979) is too much, too soon. Painfully tedious and disjointed, the film at first arouses interest via its combination of watercolor backgrounds and manipulation of cut-out paper characters, but the primitive technique cannot sustain an hour or more of running time.
Story is an episodic set of folk tales, set in Finland during the mid-1800s. Lack of continuity makes the film difficult to follow, but it is basically concerned with the picaresque adventures and fantasies of seven orphaned brothers. They farm, play hooky from school and generally avoid adult responsibilities.
Riitta Nelimarkka's backgrounds are in generally drab colors, while Jaakko Seeck's foreground figures move in jerky motions not likely to win favor with animation buffs. The brothers are not well differentiated, offering little competition to popular cartoons. Animals are treated realistically, except for a bear which gets drunk and a fantasy of oxen dressed as the faithful congregation, carrying on a service with prayer books and grammar books "in hand".
Best moments in the film, which is separated into three related sections, are fantasies, including the legend of a cyclops-like ogre who preys upon the "Wan Maiden" in the forest, and a very quaint trip to the moon escorted by the devil (to see the Earth below explode like a popped balloon) in one of the brother's nightmares. Subtitling presented focusing problems (trying to get both background and titles simultaneously in focus) on the print screened; dubbing would be more appropriate.
