The Earth Is a Sinful Song (1973) User Reviews

The simple life, the hard way

[paaskynen · 7/10 · 14 July 2007]

Maa on syntinen laulu (The Earth is a Sinful Song) is an earthy tale about a girl living in a peasant community in northern Finland before the Second World War. The film depicts without flinching the utter destitution and squalor of the life of the rural poor before the advent of modern times reached this remote area. So much so, in fact, that modern day Finns of the mobile phone generation do not recognize themselves at all in the story and tend to reject it. They cannot imagine that this was actually how their grand parents (may have) lived.

The protagonists in this tragic tale are mostly ugly, dirty and unshaven (including the women) and of questionable morals. The interaction is rough and at times violent, especially against animals. The only escape the people have from their abject poverty is religious zeal, liquor and sex (sometimes consumed in combination). All in all it is not an easy film to digest, but as a document of life in the olden days it stands firm.

The Earth Is a Sinful Song

[random_avenger · 10/10 · 24 August 2010]

Northern Finland, the late 1940s: Martta (Maritta Viitamäki) is an 18-year old promiscuous daughter of a poor family in a small village. She lives with her parents Juhani and Alli (Pauli Jauhojärvi and Milja Hiltunen) and grandfather Äijä (Aimo Saukko) and is often the target of the advances of a crass local man named Kurki-Pertti (Veikko Kotavuopio). Upon meeting a Sami reindeer herder Oula (Niiles-Jouni Aikio), Martta falls deeply in love with him and cannot see any other men the way she used to. However, her father thinks Oula is no good and threatens to kill him if he comes to see Martta at their home.

What strikes the viewer instantly when watching The Earth Is a Sinful Song is the tremendous naturalism of everything. The people, mostly amateur actors or just locals with no acting experience at all, are not made to look traditionally beautiful in any way; they would without a doubt be called very ugly by most audiences who are used to polished modern cinema. The plentiful nudity and sex are not sugared either, neither is the harsh treatment of animals that was once common in the society the film portrays: a calf is cut in pieces while still inside the cow's womb, reindeer are slaughtered by stabbing them in the heart, a dog is kicked, a hare is clubbed. Even one of the writers admitted that the filmmakers may well have gone too far in their pursuit of extreme realism, but the result is a powerful experience all the same.

The way of life on the vast plains and hills of Lapland comes across as thoroughly soaked in a unique combination of nature, love, sex, death, religion and alcohol. If Martta's romance with Oula represents love of classical infatuation type, more pleasure-driven sex certainly isn't out of the question in the village either as evidenced by Martta's escapades with Kurki-Pertti and her family's adopted son Hannes (Jouko Hiltunen), let alone the villagers' wild orgies during their drunken gatherings. The scene with a traveling preacher (Osmo Hettula) truly demonstrates the meaning of frenetic religion in the poor people's lives: the slimy preacher's misanthropic rant about the worthlessness of humanity driving the listeners into a trembling state of delirium and a crazed session of unrestrained sex marks truly the most memorable scene in the whole film. How empty must a person's life be when this kind of "message of love" is the only outside entertainment the village ever gets?

The film has been criticized for ignoring the poetic, beautiful side of Timo K. Mukka's original novel, but I think there's plenty of strange beauty to be found in the film. The gorgeous scenery of Lapland during the changing seasons is portrayed without dialog through visual means; just seeing the coloured leaves in the autumn, the reindeer herd running on the snow-covered plains, a boat floating at a lake at sunset or the green forests of the summer should be enough to provide contrast for the raw hardships in the people's lives. In the last act the pacing slows down significantly, focusing more on the inner feelings of the characters before and after the dramatic climax on a frozen lake, so I don't think the accusations of only wallowing in filthy despair are justified at all.

Last but not least, the actors are extremely convincing in their roles; what they lose in acting experience, they win gloriously in rough charisma. Especially Aimo Saukko definitely deserved his Jussi Award for his performance as the old man Äijä, and Maritta Viitamäki as the plump Martta carries a sense of raw beauty that only the vain are not willing to see. I have watched the film many times and enjoyed it every time; along with Mikko Niskanen's masterful miniseries Kahdeksan surmanluotia (Eight Deadly Shots, 1972), The Earth Is a Sinful Song is an important part of Finnish history on the silver screen. The meaning of nature, family, love, death and society to our recent ancestors is among the themes in these films and they show powerfully where we modern tech-savvy Finns are coming from, even if the lives of Martta and her family now feel distant and irrelevant to some. In my book, The Sinful Song is one of the best Finnish films ever made and essential viewing for anyone willing to understand this nation's psyche through cinema.

Captures the authentic culture of many of the immigrant Finns to our small Town (USA)

[harrisparsons · 9 August 2001]

I'm hoping to get some information on how to buy/rent this excellent Finnish film (or video version-VHS). I have seen it, and sent my mother, and several other second generation Finns to see it when it was shown many years ago in the USA. (Finnish w/ English subtitles) They were amazed at how "familiar" the characters and events portrayed were to their own transplanted experience. Even the dialect was understandable, and they suddenly realized that they didn't need to read the subtitles for their "native tongue". It's particularly important that such films be made available to these fast disappearing immigrant "niches" in the USA. There is a growing awareness,among the descendents of these immigrant cultures, of the loss of an important identity that belies all of the American myths of "the melting pot". Films such as Rauni Mollberg's "Maa on syntinen laulu" (The Earth Is a Sinful Song) (1973) would, I'm sure become a vital part of this "reparation movement"-- much as the Kalevala Epic did for the Finnish national identity. The Finns who immigrated to America instilled a passionate pride in their offspring, which deserves the kind of nourishment that Mollberg's film can provide. Can anyone help me find out how it can be brought back to our "Finn Village"? Thanks (Kiitos)

Absolute Gem!!

[souvikmeetszeus · 10/10 · 10 December 2013]

What a movie. The first thing that came to my mind when the end credits started rolling over a gorgeous waterscape was how beautifully the film justifies it's title and lives up to it, capturing all of the Finnish rural life in all its majestic scope and gory details. The movie unfolds in a poetic manner, weaving a really melancholic and sinful song in its course, and laying bare the intricacies of Lapp (indigenous people of Lapland) lives and the most carnal of human behaviors. The village life is portrayed with utter honesty and is so brutally natural in its narrative that it will surely grip you and exert an air of morbidity mixed with beauty. Disbelieving, you will watch their lives and realize that deep inside, you too are like them, ruled by instincts, and whilst they acted as they felt, we, the modern men, devise new ways to achieve the same through deception and slime. Even if each character has morals that won't match up to our (fake) standards, you, as a viewer cannot help but admire the toughness and gut in their lives. Conservatism versus Desires leads to a fate that is bleak but yet optimist and stoic and cyclical in its anti-climax. The story revolves around Martta, a promiscuous girl in love with a womanizing herdsman, and how their love ripples through a family. The Padre, an intentional insertion by the director, does not fail to burn the imagination as he delivers fear unto the villagers with his poisonous and twisted sermons, and drives them into an orgy to purge sins. The movie always tries to explore contradictions and honestly speaking, what is life without contradictions? In giving no answers and taking no sides, Mollberg is able to capture life in its magnificence, and create a reflective and awesome movie experience. Totally recommended. Truly an allegorical film and a microcosmic representation of humanity under the sheen.

Unpolished masterpieces

[JankaJaakari · 10/10 · 21 October 2007]

Simply superb movie by late Rauni Molberg based on book of same name by Timo K. Mukka. Story set on poor rural region in western Lapland some years after Continuation War. Especially dialog is on level of its own and this film uses not so well know local dialect of border region between Finland and Sweden in Lapland. This movie has caused fair share of controversies be chose it show how the things really were during time (and quite some time after that) and place it depicts. Upon its 1974 release, it was the most widely attended film in Finnish film history. I can not comprehend why master piece like this is on limited distribution by Finnish National film Board. One can only hope that now when esteemed Mr Molberg has passed on his master piece can finally receive wider distribution