Mainostelevisio, the predecessor of its 1993-launched own channel MTV3, was the most astonishing playground of Finnish audiovisual media, a reality, where Jorma Pulkkinen and Pier Paolo Pasolini could have any time been pulled into the same group portrait
The film and theatre programming was og a high standard and occasionally even more ambitious than at the Finnish Broadcasting Corporation Yle, from whose channels “Maikkari” got their broadcast times.
The first colour production of MTV-theatre was an adaptation of Hannu Salama’s debut novel Se tavallinen tarina (1961). It’s a summery tale of the shy country girl Eeli, her move from Teisko to Tampere and to work in a cotton factory, soon after her confirmation. In her new life Eeli makes acquaintances of different kinds of men and ends up losing her sanity.
Riitta Räty is Eeli in her first on-camera role. Teisko was joined to Tampere in the year this TV movie was completed. With its inland cruiseships and open-air dance pavilions, Se tavallinen tarina offers nostalgic views of Pirkanmaa from a time that is now in many ways lost. (Lysti Manni)
Language: Finnish, no subtitles