Le paradis de Maria

Unrealistic to portray these folks in a religious cult listening to jazz music as they would've almost certainly would've thought it evil. They would've listened to hymns or marches in reality. It's lame how directors always assume EVERYONE in that time listened to jazz. It's like saying everyone liked Rap in the 80s or everyone liked Grunge in the 90s. Irresponsible storytelling.

For a story inspired by real events, hardly anything could be more intriguing than such a religious sect experience. A spooky over-natural element and the use of ideological violence take us right into the heat. The two faced leader has a generous caretaker side but was apparently also a self-serving nutcase. This impulsive tyrant picks herself a lucky orphan girl, Salome, as her girl-power ally. From here on our destined main company is this almost totally will lacking honorary friend, played by Satu Tuuli Karhu. Her curiously expressive eyes are full of life, but she isn't underway to sweep us off our feet with a whole lot of character traits. Instead we find ourselves kept in the dark and often puzzled, when an emotional scene plays out. If the director's intended reaction was a positive or a negative is many times hard to figure out.

It is really hard to understand, how such interesting story can be ruined by a movie. Story would contain much more, but this movie is really dificult to watch. It is soooo boring. Of course, you can find most sins of modern finnish movies included: poorly made rhythm of the scenes, unclear speech etc. Can be found in this movie.