Thus, all that’s left for good men is to stand and fight-to the death if necessary.Īs I said, last week, in my review of the silent masterpiece Laila (1929) an epic set in the frozen tundra of Lappland, I’m a sucker for such imagery: barren and frozen landscapes, characters wrapped in layers of thick and luxurious furs, amazing headwear that is, I kid you not, Vogue-worthy, a sturdy people at one with their environment but acutely aware of the mortal danger that threatens every movement. The Shaman is telling Aigin that evil is incomprehensible. No grand speeches, no philosophical reflections on the nature of good and evil. After a Shaman kills a ferocious bear, the villagers will only gaze at their Shaman through a protective amulet or risk the immolation of their souls.Īs director Sidney Lumet explained to nervous studio executives in regard to Jewish ritual in our film A Stranger Among Us, the more culturally specific the details, the more universal the story.Īs the medieval Sami enacted their pagan rituals, Seraphic Secret felt right at home, identifying with the characters, their reliance on religious ritual, community, and their feelings of terror and awe before the inexplicable universe and the evil that threatens their very existence.Īt one point in the film Aigin poses the ultimate question to the Shaman: Why are the Tjuder bent on annihilating the Sami?Īnswers the wise Shaman, “Such is our fate.” Set in a pre-Christian culture, the film lovingly documents a world ruled by spirits and ghostly reindeer.
Compared to the Tjuder, the bandits in Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai, are unruly frat boys.Īigin is taken captive by a Tjuder warrior. Rarely has film presented such nightmarish antagonists. They are, quite simply, creatures who have climbed from the bowels of hell, evil incarnate. There are no women in their band and they don’t even bother to rape. The Tjuder are never seen eating, tending fires or hunting for food. It’s a classic set-up with the reluctant hero trying to gain support against a blood-thirsty conquerer who cannot be appeased, whose only goal is murder and pillage. The Pathfinder (1987) is a tale of utter simplicity, but endowed with mythic power.īased on an ancient Sami legend and the first film shot in the Sami language, The Pathfinder tells the tale of Aigin, a young hunter who returns home to find his family slaughtered by the Tjuder, merciless bandits who look like a cross between jihadists and ninja assassins.Īigin flees to another village where he tries to rally the peaceful hunter gatherers to make a stand against the genocidal Tjuder. A crossbow decorated with the grinning skull of a small animal is aimed, the trigger released, and. She lifts her eyes and spies a discordant note: in the whiteness of the snow, among the white trees, is a band of men draped in filthy black skins. Bundled in thick furs, the child approaches a stand of birch trees. The landscape is sheeted with snow and ice. While you are preparing for your adventure to the Sami land, the Pathfinder film concert will bring the Yoik and Sami to you for a close-to-real experience.Mikkel Gaup as Aigin, The Pathfinder, 1987.Ī little girl searches for her lost dog. It is said that for a complete spiritual experience of Yoik, one needs to travel to the Sápmi land and to listen to the Yoik under the midnight sun or under the northern lights. The beautiful and mythical Yoik is rooted in the shamanistic cultures but it is also related to the life of Sami in the modern world.
Yoik, the traditional form of song and music of the Sami, carries the Sami cultural tradition and their personal memories through mimicking the natural sound and chanting. Aigin swears revenge, but to save other Sámi who have fled to the coast, he must become a guide and pathfinder for the Chudes on a dangerous path through a rugged winter landscape. Set on the Finnmarksvidda plateau in Northern Norway and inspired by a Sámi oral storytelling circulated in the 11th century, the film Pathfinder follows Aigin, a young Sámi hunter who sees his family massacred by Chudes, a tribe from the East. The intense action adventure film from 1987 has become a milestone in Norwegian film history as the first feature film directed and played by the Sami - indigenous people that inhabits the Arctic region. On the 27th September at the Forbidden City Music Hall in Beijing, the Norwegian Oscar nominated movie Pathfinder will be screened as a silent movie, but accompanied by live music composed and performed by young Norwegian musicians from the Barents region.
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