Mysteriously pardoned after serving part of a life sentence, Leila (Kaarina Hazard) is angry. She was perfectly content. Who has dared interrupt her punishment?
With nowhere else to go, Leila is corralled into a job as a personal assistant to a blind priest who lives alone at a rundown parish, Father Jacob (Heikki Nousiainen).
Jacob greets Leila wholeheartedly, pouring tea and inviting her to dine with him on hearty bread. He seems to know her. She’s not planning to stay long, she tells him. She won’t do any menial labor.
Jacob reassures the rotund, frowning woman. He only needs her help to read his letters. Requests for prayer arrive each day, delivered by a jovial postman (Jukka Keinonen). The letter carrier has heard all about Leila’s crime. Privately he warns her: she had better not harm the saintly cleric.
Contemptuous Leila suspects that Father Jacob engineered her release. Still she can’t help respect him. Clearly Jacob has a gift. He knows who is writing even if Leila doesn’t share the sender’s name. People from all over are sick or troubled. Students struggle at school.
Seeing into the heart of each request, Jacob directs Leila to look up Bible passages (most of which he knows by heart). He prays. He asks her to write brief replies. The letters are then hoarded under his bed with a thousand others.
Beautifully acted and engaging from start to finish, Letters to Father Jacob asks us to consider why we do what we do. Klaus Haro (Mother of Mine) directs this deeply felt inquiry into ego, faith and transformative love. Tuomo Hutri’s cinematography adds to its quiet power, as does the unassuming script by Jaana Makkonen.
When the letters stop arriving, Jacob tortures himself. How selfless has his service been? He no longer feels needed or important.
Jacob and Leila each drop into a world of pain and doubt. Finally Leila asks for forgiveness. Grace imparts quiet miracles, unearned and unexpected.
If you like Letters to Father Jacob, you might enjoy: Of Gods and Men; Winter in Wartime; Win Win.
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Letters to Father Jacob 2009 / NR / 1 hour, 14 min
Cast Overview: Kaarina Hazard, Jukka Keinonen, Heikki Nousiainen, Esko Roine
Director: Klaus Haro
Genre: Drama, Foreign
Language: Finnish with English subtitles
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