Young advertising executive Vatanen suddenly quits his job and his whole life in Helsinki, and decides to spend a while in the Finnish wilderness. A wounded hare hit by a car becomes his travel companion. Together they find reclusion in the Finnish Lapland, soon to be disturbed by a noisy group of foreign tourists and their pretentious Finnish hosts. When the hare gets ill and needs to see a vet, Vatanen must return to the city and finally face the choice between his new and former life.—Markku Kuoppamäki
For years now an advertising executive called Vatanen has lost his taste of life. The expectations of his younger days are far from coming true. He is tired of his wife, his job and the place where he lives. There is an ulcer on the way.
An average day in early spring brings a great change to Vatanen's life. He is out of town on a business trip with a colleague when their car strikes a a hare that has jumped onto the road ahead of them. The animal scrambles into the forest. Vatanen goes after the hare and finds it with a damaged leg. Vatanen stays behind to patch up the hare and admires the countryside stretching before him. He refuses to rejoin his friend who drives away in a huff. Vatanen is left alone in the forest deep in thought. In the early hours the colleague returns to fetch Vatanen but by now he is nowhere to be found.
In the morning Vatanen awakes in a barn feeling like a new man. The hare is asleep by his side. The sun shines through a crack in the wall. Vatanen sets of to resume his wandering through the Finnish summer landscape the hare in his pocket. (to be cont. later)
