Who the Devil Can See in the Dark – a search for the missing father

Who The Devil Can See in the Dark. Picture: DocPoint

After a somewhat controversial look at her mother’s side of the family in the late 90’s in the film Family Files, Finnish director Mari Soppela takes us through a different rabbit’s hole in 2015 with ‘Who the Devil Can See in the Dark’ (2014).

The films opens with Mari and her father, Kari, discussing the few known details related to the true identity of his father.

Born in Hamburg, Kari always knew that his father was a German soldier during the second World War.

His mother Helvi, met the soldier in the early 40’s and in 1944 secretly left Finland with the German army.

Later returning to Finland, with young Kari, Helvi never disclosed the true identity of the soldier to her son.

Journey to Germany

Growing up in a large Finnish family, Kari soon outgrew the perception of the little boy from Germany and began to construct his own identity. With several Uncles and many cousins Kari considered his upbringing to be as joy-filled and healthy as that of most other children.

The missing identity of his father was seemingly a larger issue to Mari, than to him.

In 2010, Mari came across several records of Helvi’s re-entry into Finland.

After acknowledging that her interest in the subject matter had been rekindled, Mari requested permission ( respectfully ) from Kari to continue the search for the identity of the German soldier.

Agreeing to the terms, Kari and Mari set off to Germany to discover their roots as well as a new family of sorts.

They set off to discover the true meaning of a family.

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