With Reindeer and Sled in Inka Länta’s Winterland (1926), Hippfest at Home, Hippfest #15

 

Unable to make the annual trek to the mystic shores of Borrowstounness, or Bo'ness as it has become, on the south shores of the Firth of Forth, I am at least able to experience some of the events of the annual silent film festival online via Hippfest at Home. This annual festival is a miracle of imagination and diligence, a cineastes’ Brigadoon coming forth every March as the spring breezes blow away the cobwebs and chill, banishing the modern world’s prosaic unpleasantness. The past comes into view on the Hippodrome’s big screen and with the aid of some of the finest musicians in the World, we are immersed in the timeless moments of recognition and remembrance: With projectors and piano in Alison Strauss’ Spring Wonderland.

I haven’t had much involvement with reindeer to date but for an hour on Friday night myself and the family were virtual herders watching the lives of the Sámi people who co-existed with them in the most precarious of ways in the far north of Sweden, across Scandinavia and even into Russia. The Sámi are now the last indigenous people in Europe inhabiting the region of Sápmi (formerly Lapland, a term no longer used) with some 10% still making a living by herding reindeer. With a population of just 80,000 across five countries, they are a fascinating group with a rich cultural heritage.

Tonight’s screening encompassed Sámi old and new with the UK premiere of a new score by Sámi-Finnish joiker and electronic musician Hildá Länsman plus sound designer Tuomas Norvio, collaborating with the Norwegian-Sámi musician Lávre Johan Eira and Swedish composer, cellist and bass guitarist Svante Henryson. A joik or yoik is the traditional form of Sámi song and is a form of chanting which is one of the oldest musical traditions in Europe. Here it was deployed alongside more recent traditional European instruments and electronica to create a visceral and sometimes startling score to this restored documentation of this remarkable people.

The depiction we see was, as with other ethnographical documentaries – Flaherty’s Nanook of the North (1922) for example – orchestrated by the director, Swede Erik Bergström, using actual Sámi all listed under their names, so Inka Länta is indeed the real rein-deal. This restoration project was led by Magnus Rosborn of the Swedish Film Institute who was on hand to detail the background to the film and the work he had to tirelessly led. He explained that Erik Bergström worked in the nomad school in the Jokkmokk area and only made two films, clearly inspired to show what he knew of this ancient lifestyle especially as the education system tried to teach Swedish and to irradicate the Sámi culture.

Magnus found part of the film in the Eye Museum in Amsterdam and later a camera negative all of which had to be re-edited based on an intertitle list from the Swedish censorship office to recreate the narrative as originally intended. There are still missing segments, mostly of reindeer slaughter – possibly censored at some point – but what remains now is a crystal clear and undeniably raw but beautiful film. Magnus referenced the golden age of Swedish silent film and we are seeing a golden age of Swedish film restoration with this film along with Stiller’s Gösta berlings saga (1924) and Molander’s two films based on Selma Lagerlöf’s epic Jerusalem, were among the highlights of last year’s Italian film festivals dedicated to restored and silent films.

The restoration of this film debuted further north though in the Tromsø International Film Festival who also commissioned the score. Festival director Lisa Hoen, appearing in a lovely Sámi top, her grandmother was Sámi, explained more about the film’s background and the unfortunate treatment of the Sámi peoples which is still in the process of being addressed. The Länta family are apparently still living in the Jokkmokk municipality and you wonder at how their lives have changed over the last century. In this way Bergström’s film is still doing its part in raising awareness and celebrating a people more sinned against than sinning: a way of life in harmony with nature, tough though it might have been.

This is one of the central conflicts in watching Inka Länta’s Winterland, the landscape looks stunning and the restoration has created such a crystal clear view of this world but at the same time there is death and hardship, the Länta family living on the edge having to move with the seasons and hope their reindeer stay free from wolves, and other threats that might lead them astray. At one point we see the family having to de-camp and move their herd because a lone wolf has killed one of the deer. Petter, the best wolf hunter pursues the animal with the aid of Inka’s brother and even if concocted this is a breathless hunt with man and rifle succeeding.

This is life in sub-zero jeopardy with Inka’s family constantly on the move with the seasons coming down from the mountains to the woodlands at the start of winter and never stopping for long… The film opens with light-blue tinted tracking shots of endless snow-covered landscapes, forests of frozen pine trees and a lone figure wading through crisp deep snow. Then we see some frozen water and some pines on the woods at the lower levels.

The man is Guttorm Blind come to visit a siida – a reindeer-breeding community – to retrieve some deer that have wandered off from his own herd. We see a goahti hut belonging to Inka Länta who lives there with her brother Amul and her maternal aunt. Next door live her maternal uncle, Petter Rassa and his children… plus dogs. We see her chopping wood for the fire that keeps the huts habitable in the relentless cold. The deer are identified by their ear markings and Inka, Petter and Guttorm gather his portion before returning to the hut for food and rest. The deer graze on lichen below the snow, perfectly adapted to their circumstances along with their human partners.

Not much happens but a lot happens and this is very mindful watching, a slower world in which young children playing in the snow with their cousin Inka is surprisingly gratifying. So many things we take for granted, no taps out here, no running water and Inka filling a pan of snow to melt for water for cooking and for the dogs. Petter chops up a deer carcass and the family eats bone marrow with even the little ones adept at carving out the marrow with knives.

In part two, it is February and Inka gets the sleds ready for the long trip to Jokkmokk Market… a mad ride with the low-riding sleds attached to reindeers with the riders sometimes dragged from their perch by wayward steeds. Who knows how much of this is actuality or playful but it’s quite a sight and the cinematography is superb from the experienced Gustaf Boge, with whom Bergström had already made one film about Inka Länta. The scenes at the market are poetically composed and we see how the Sami economy is based on trade and exchange with some harvesting ptarmigan as other weave or sell imported coffee and other modern goods.

We meet the local constable, the richest man, various notables such as Anta Pirak and his wife, Henrik Omma, the Laestadianism preacher August Lindberg and others probably all people the director knew well? Talking of which we see the “School Inspector” talking to local parents, is this Bergström’s Hitchcock moment? We see the nomad school where he worked which is formed of four huge goahti huts with smoking “chimneys” quite different from the wooden buildings in the centre of the town.

The School Inspector talks to parents is this Bergström?

Inka also meets with Guttorm Blind, is there a budding romance here? I’d like to know for sure but you root for them anyway. Soon it’s a return to the wilderness and the family uprooting their camp and moving their reindeer away from the wolves. The wolf hunt is well constructed and there’s a superb hand held sequence as Petter races across a frozen lake on fast-moving skis. If you’ve ever watched cross-country skiing, this is faster. The wolf is killed and skinned just as a reindeer will later be shown, after Guttorm’s herd is rounded up for slaughter. Vegans look away now and maybe some carnivores… this is the process. Inka is there as well as Guttorm’s father… oh come on, there’s definitely something going on!

The final sequence sees Petter Länta and Amul setting off after some missing reindeer and this is the most heart-breaking part of the film as the frozen dead body of one of the family is found and placed onto a sled. Bergström films someone rolling down the hill but given the condition of the body they find this is likely to have been staged. Things look bleak for Inka after her brother has died but as she wanders sorrowfully considering a future away from the reindeer and hour mountainous home, who should she run into but… no spoilers.

Guttorm Blind

Whatever the imposed narrative from Bergström, his film is respectful to the culture he as attempting to capture on film and artistic licence can be never more necessary than when filming at -47 degrees! This film is still affecting and none more so that in this presentation. As someone of half Scottish and one tenth Scandinavian heritage, it’s fascinating to see this world so near and yet so far away in history.

As Alison Strauss said in her introduction, part of her job satisfaction comes from finding films that people didn’t know they wanted to see and the unfolding of this evening on screen exactly proves her point. Excellent work all involved!

 

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