THE IDEAL LANDSCAPE

Mait Kukemeri, a young Communist activist, is supposed to bring light into the darkness of Estonian post-war rural life. He wants to attend university. He is thoroughly fit and educated. Ambitiously righteous, gently determined. He loves dancing and knows how to have fun. The fun is over though when kolkhoz harvest yields have to be increased and Mait becomes a pawn in a game played by saboteurs and those providing them with cover. Peeter Simm transforms an aggrieved party into a torn observer of a society subject to forced collectivisation, in which the reality does not – indeed cannot – match the ideal.