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.
