Nothing Forbidden about 'Forbidden Fruit'(Kielletty hedelma )........!!

No wonder “ Forbidden Fruit”( Kielletty hedelma )stole the show in quite a few prestigious Film festivals despite being a redundant melodramatic brooding from many a perspective..! This Finnish film has just gifted me a thoroughly engrossing time. Seems I have fallen under the spell of Finnish cinema after having savoured quite a few in the last couple of weeks….! To say in a nutshell, ‘Forbidden Fruit’ is about the Laestadians, a huge community of Finnish people,who are diehard conservatists tenaciously insisting on taking scripture literally and forbidding their members from indulging in all forms of pleasures deemed ‘epicurean’ and “worldly” — such as dancing, premarital sex, alcohol, television, movies, and contraception. It is a gripping tale of two Laestadian teens ,and their fluttering faith…But , above all, it is a cerebral film on the regressive nature of any form of extreme conservatism that robs life of all its naturalistic joys and makes it drab and dreary…. Director Dome Karukoski’s melodramatic flick probes into how two Laestadian teens go through fire and water to come to terms with the impositions inflicted upon them by their community. The first to rebel against the system and thereby threaten to pollute the prestige and sanctity of the Order is Maria, a headstrong teenager who refuses to show allegiance to the Laestadian community’s asceticism straightaway and moves to metropolitan Helsinki in the pursuit of ‘pleasures’. Plunging recklessly into a ‘no-holds-barred’ lifestyle, she rationalizes her choices by falling back on the idea that she can always purge herself of her ‘sins’ at a later point through the ritualistic repentance and confession , atonement and absolution.. Meanwhile, the deeply perturbed doyens of the community persuade the young woman’s best friend, die hard conservative Raakel to aid them and send her out into the world to bring the rebel back. Unsurprisingly, Raakel, too, falls under the spell of the world of sensual pleasures she experiences and soon dabbles into them, displaying her sheer reluctance to imprison herself once more in the cocoon of self-denial in which she was forced to take shelter in her traditional life . The film would make u feel the muddles of a Catch 22 situation that unhinge the minds of those who have gusts to question the impropriety of conservatism and assert their hearts… Top-notch performances of the leads and technical finesse add to its appeal ….