Imagine a mix of Repo Man, Oliver! and Pinocchio and you're on the road to grasping the tone of this bizarre Estonian take on Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy's character Buratino, a wooden boy (or boyus woodenus, as the doctors in the film refer to him). Buratino's virginal mother wishes upon a star for a son and is immediately answered by what can only be called a rape-splinter. The woman gives birth almost immediately to her little wooden Buratino.
The film follows Lennart Meri's filmmaking since 1964, when he was invited to work in Tallinnfilm's editorial office and soon became a key person in the planning of Estonian-Finnish film cooperation plans.
A snapshot of one segment of Estonian present-day life, shown through the eyes of a child: 8 years old Lucia is leading a jolly and naughty Pippi-Longstocking-style life in a small town in Estonia. Her father Kaido, a graveyard keeper, can hardly provide for the family, her mother Maria is a drunk. Then the family receives an unexpected invitation to spend a week in Finland, in the house of the female pastor Sipra. This week will change everybody's life in unexpected ways...
The documentary reflects Uku Masing's life as an inner migrant during the restricted conditions in the Soviet era, including the repressions by KGB and keeping quiet about the writer. The main channel for distributing Masing's work was manual copying. As the last part of the film trilogy, the film follows the scope and influence of such activity while combining the subjects of KGB, Masing's wife and manual copying of Masing's work based on recollections by about thirty people touched by the great man.
People who got acquainted with Uku Masing in 1950s and grew stronger in time, either in Tallinn Institute of Theology of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church, Estonian Museum of Literature in Tartu, or in Masing's apartment in Vilde (now Hurda) Street help to recollect memories about the acknowledged poet, theologian and teacher. Among others, Jaan Kaplinski, Vello Salo, Kalle Kasemaa, Hando Runnel, Andres Ehin, Ave Alavainu, Viivi Luik, Jaan Kiivit, Toomas Paul and Jaan Tooming share their memories and contemplate.
