In an era when the peasants are so poor that they eat the bark off of trees, and steal whatever they can, Liina falls in love with young village boy Hans. But she has been promised to another, and Hans only has eyes for the daughter of the local baron. Calamity unfolds as it must, set amid an archaic winter landscape, where the ghosts of the dead return to Earth, and werewolves roam the forests. To survive here, you must outwit the landowners, the church, and the plague, making a deal with the devil in the process. Director Rainer Sarnet and cinematographer Mart Taniel have composed a visual symphony in black-and-white. The film is reminiscent of the cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky, Béla Tarr or, with his world of living things, Jan vankmajer. Yet with its narrative and its visual invention, it remains deeply anchored in Estonia’s folk tales, utterly its own coinage.