In the late eighties the fall of the Soviet Union is only just around the corner but the Soviet army still occupies the Baltic States and obstructs independence. The mini-series The Battlefields of Love is set against this background.Ain Baumann is photographer. He and his wife Ilona are doing well, until Ain receives a visit in the middle of the night from a man who reminds him that he still has to do his military service. Ain had already been in a mental institution once to keep out of the army, and now things are looking bad again. Ilona manages to get hold of a forged document on condition that she and Ain have a second child, because then Ain is bread-winner and doesn’t need to do military service. The pressure to make a second child, the ‘Redeemer’, is a heavy burden on both of them and their marriage soon starts getting frayed. The desperate Ain then tries to play his cards openly, but the civil servants do not suffer from excessive flexibility. Ain drinks more and more and at a certain point he is taken in.The Battlefields of Love provides a restrained and noble picture of how the population of Estonia suffered almost imperceptibly yet undeniably from external influences. Ain cannot escape from the clutches of his surroundings and the almost invisible threat of a foreign army remains tangible throughout the film.
