Cinema
Spring
Kevade
Arvo Kruusement · 1970
Synopsis
Paunvere, at the end of the nineteenth century. When Arno Tali arrives with his father at the parish school, lessons have already begun. He is seated next to Joosep Toots, a tireless prankster fed on tales of Indians; there is also the placid Tõnisson, Kiir the whiner who tells on everyone, and Teele, his farm neighbour, who becomes his first love. From one autumn to one spring, amid the mischief, the fights with the young gentlemen of the pastor's manor and the lessons of the teacher Laur, Arno learns about friendship, truth and the confusion of love.
Context
The first feature film by its director, the film was shot in Palamuse, the Paunvere of Oskar Luts's book, from a screenplay by Kaljo Kiisk and Voldemar Panso, with music by Veljo Tormis; Kiisk also plays the bell-ringer Lible. Former pupils of the parish school wrote to the studio to demand the film, while an official notice objected to the screenplay's church, drunkard and fights. Released in January 1970, it had three sequels with the same actors, in 1976, in 1990 and in 2020, and its restored version was rereleased in cinemas on 13 April 2006.
Who it is for
About an hour and a half, in Estonian and in black and white. It helps to know that the book it comes from is one of the best loved in the country, and that its schoolchildren have become types that everyone recognises.
Prizes and reception
558,000 admissions in Estonia in 1970 for 1.36 million inhabitants, 8.1 million in the Soviet Union; first in the Estonian critics' ranking in 2002.