Kaarlo Vatanen is a middle-aged journalist returning home from an assignment late at night with his photographer, who is driving. Vatanen is reflecting on how nothing in his life has gone quite right before the photographer accidentally hits a hare in the middle of the road. Vatanen gets out of the car to see to the hare, chasing it into the forest. When he doesn’t return, the photographer abandons him.
Vatanen follows the hare into the woods and sees that its hind leg is broken. He fashions a makeshift splint for the creature, and spends the night in a nearby barn. Meanwhile, the photographer gets very drunk waiting for him to return, and the next day realises he essentially left his friend for dead—thank God it’s summer and not the height of winter! He lets the office and Vatanen’s wife know he’s missing.
In a small village close to the woods, the journalist and the hare visit a vet together, who gives Vatanen recommendations on how to care for the animal. He finds the quaint village with its provincial way of life so agreeable that he decides to stay for a few days. Before long, Vatanen decides that becoming friends with this hare was the sign he needed to give up his busy life as a journalist in Helsinki, and all the debts and shallow cares that come with it. He calls a friend to sell his boat, and then his wife to tell her that he’s not coming home.
Vatanen goes to the nearby town of Heinola to collect the money for his boat from the bank, but his wife and his manager are one step ahead of him, waiting to ambush him and drag him home to Helsinki. Vatanen spots them, however, and tricks them both into thinking he’ll come willingly. Using this distraction, he manages to get his cash from the bank and escapes with the hare. With a wad of cash in his pocket and the Finnish countryside laid out in front of him, Vatanen starts making his way north.
A year of comic misadventures ensues, where Vatanen and his unlikely companion battle through forest fires, pagan sacrifices, military war games and encounters with murderous bears, kept afloat by the help and understanding of other sympathetic free spirits. A much-loved classic in Finland, The Year of the Hare is a freewheeling adventure through the Finnish countryside, and a witty portrayal of one man’s long detour from conventional living.
