Maria on her way to the big city
Forbidden Fruit (Kielletty Hedelmä) begins with an eighteen year-old girl – Raakel (Marjut Maristo) – waking-up, in a bedroom she shares with many sisters, and praying. The film examines the ‘awakenings’ of two Conservative Laestadian, eighteen year-old girls from ‘Northern Ostrobothnia’ (the parts of the film set in the north were filmed in Liminka, not far from Oulu). Raakel’s friend Maria (Amanda Pilke), whose sister Eeva (Malla Malmivaara) long ago fled to Helsinki and is considered ‘completely lost’ by her religious community, decides to go to Helsinki herself to work ‘one summer.’ Maria is desperate to ‘feel things’ and ‘experience things’ outside of her strict religious upbringing where even thinking about sexual activity before marriage is being tempted by the ‘Arch-fiend’ and must be ‘confessed’ to another Laestadian to be ‘forgiven in the name and the blood of Jesus.’ Raakel is sent by the community to ‘look after’ Maria and stop her losing her faith, which she seems very likely to do.
Helsinki brings on a crisis in their sense of who they are and it is the sensitive, unbiased way in which the film examines this which makes it so compelling to watch. Just tasting alcohol for the first time is a massive symbolic step which it takes Raakel almost until the end of the film to achieve. And the other temptations of Helsinki – from going to the cinema to a descent into something bordering prostitution – are all wide open to these girls who are so naïve that when they first go to a bar they order ‘something alcoholic’ and when asked specifically what are unable to name an alcoholic drink.
It would be so easy in a movie like this to portray the Laestadians as evil brain-washers and Helsinki as liberation. After-all, the Laestadians are pictured, in Forbidden Fruit, as instilling everyone with intense guilt just for having human desires, condemning non-believers to Hell and refusing to speak to or at least eat with them, brow-beating and intimidating those they feel are losing their faith by coming round in all-male groups to ask, ‘Onko kaikki hyvin?’ and treating women as temptresses. The girls are so inculcated with a Laestadian worldview that, in the big city, their traditions remain a kind of comfort – especially the ritual of forgiving each other’s sins.
But, of course, there’s more to it and, fortunately, the film reflects this. The writer also looks at the positive side of the faith. The girls are elated to see their siblings after a summer away, so close are they to them. So concerned are the Laestadian leaders for the girls that, at one point in the film, as Raakel comments, ‘They drove 700km just for us.’ Worried she’s ‘evil’ and will ‘go to Hell,’ Raakel gets talking to a middle-aged man at Helsinki’s Laestadian meeting house who reassures her and seems to genuinely care about what is, to him, a perfect stranger. And we also see how strongly Raakel’s mother loves her and how much Laestadianism-traumatised Eeva misses her family. The acting is very convincing and Malmivaara's portrayal of Eeva deserves particular praise for its sensitivity.
In addition to the fun and freedom of the big city, we are not spared the downside either. This includes the nihilistic drunkenness and bitterness of Eeva (though she really does care about her sister) and the lack of meaning to life of their bubbly work-colleague 'Tuuli.' The girls also get to know two boys (Toni and Jussi), both of whom appear to lack any kind of ‘community’ to care for them. Toni is wealthy and has every material possession you could wish for. However, he is from a small family, his parents live in Spain and he’s contemplating going to India to find out exactly who he is. In many ways, he is very similar to Raakel and the movie leads up to a not entirely unexpected but still thoughtful climax. The movie would have been either boring or too Hollywood if the climax had not happened exactly the way that it did. I don’t want to give too much away. It really is worth watching.
It should be said that some areas of Forbidden Fruit could have been done better. I wasn’t too sure about all the ‘symbolism’ which director Dome Karukoski and writer Aleksi Bardy clearly love. It laboured the point. Drinking alcohol for the first time (a long close-up) and ensuring it was cider ‘made with apples’ seemed to be a fairly obvious allusion to Eve eating the apple from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. Giving Maria’s ‘fallen’ sister the name ‘Eeva’ was another clunking reference to Genesis. Equally, there are some very unoriginal uses of water (close-up, paused shots) to wash away sin or indicate some kind of rebirth. The taking off of crucifix necklaces was clichéd as well though the use of fire (for obvious reasons) was actually more subtle. Also, if you like watching Finnish films with the English subtitles on (perhaps to improve your Finnish) there are some odd translations. For example, the idiosyncratic Laestadian term ‘soul-enemy’ (devil) is inexplicably translated as ‘Arch-fiend’.
Nevertheless, these are really minor gripes. The best thing about the film is the seamless way that the two main characters seem to cross-over each other and swap places. You begin being behind one character and gradually realise that the other – who you might not initially empathise with as much – is a far deeper, kinder and more interesting individual. It is extremely well done. This is an excellent film.
* * * * *
Forbidden Fruit (Kielletty Hedelmä). 2009. Directed by Dome Karukoski. Written by Aleksi Bardy.
