Wolf (Varg)

Lines outside the Imperial Theater, one of the venues for the Montreal World Film Festival - and people doing the complex work of studying the programme and picking what tickets to buy.

Yesterday was the first full day of the 2008 Montreal World Film Festival, an event we eagerly anticipate all year. Often our time in the city hasn't coincided very well with the festival, but this year we're fortunate enough to be here for most of it and to live fairly close by. So we bought a 30-coupon pass and are well on our way to seeing fifteen films in seven or eight days - maybe more. For the past two days, our "work" has started at 9:00 am. There's something quite bizarre about getting up, drinking coffee, hopping on your bike in the heat and sunshine of a summer day, and then finding yourself in the cool darkness and plush seats of a movie theater at 8:45 am - not to mention the fact that you will presently be transported to another part of the globe, a place you knew nothing about and might never visit, or to a different time in history. That is the extraordinary ability of world cinema. And during the time- and place-altering blur of a film festival, seeing several movies a day, you live in chunks of time that carry an intensity unfelt during most of the rest of the year.

I'll try to pick highlights of each day and write about them here, hoping that you will be able to see some of these films, either in your own cities or on DVD, when they come out later. I wish I could share the experience with all of you right now.

On the opening day of the festival, I joined a crowd at the esplanade of Place des Arts, the arts complex downtown, for the first of the nightly, free, outdoor screenings of well-known movies from past years. The film that night was "Chariots of Fire" - appropriate for the current Olympics - and also for its British-French-American culturally-competitive subtext which struck an amused chord in this city. Seeing it projected on a big outdoor screen reminded me of a drive-in movie theater, but how much nicer it was not to be in a car, but sitting on the steps of the arts complex along with hundreds of other people. (It was also quite a shock to compare the opening ceremonies of the 1924 Olympics depicted in the film, which I hadn't seen since it came out in 1981, with the Beijing extravaganza of a few days ago.)

Yesterday, though, the festival of new films began in earnest. We saw two movies: "Faubourg 36," a French film about friends in a poor working-class Paris in 1936 who decide to re-open a neighborhood music/vaudeville hall. Part musical, part drama, it was well-shot and well-directed, and no doubt accurate to the times, but too sentimental for me to get excited about. The film in the morning was, however, something else.

This was "Varg", ("Wolf") a Swedish film about the collision between the traditional life of the Saami,  modern society, and governmental authority. Although more and more Saami are abandoning their native way of life, some, like the protagonist of the film and his nephew, still herd reindeer. However, the wolf population is growing under the protection of governmental laws, and each year, wolves attack the reindeer, sometimes decimating the herds. Killing an endangered wolf is an offense punishable by a prison term -- and there you have the plot of the film. Shot in a documentary style, this was, however, neither a documentary nor a political manifesto; it was a feature film more about a way of life that has already changed a great deal, and is close to disappearing, and it is also about inter-generational family dynamics. The acting was totally convincing - the young man and his mother were particularly good -  and the screenplay excellent; the wild scenery magnificent; the governmental rigidity chilling.

I know that living in Canada has made me much more aware of the Arctic and the lives of northern peoples and species. Watching the graphic shapes of reindeer moving on the snow made me better understand the origins of some of the northern art I've always admired, both Inuit and Scandinavian, and even reminded me of cave paintings: it is that elemental. The vastness of the herds, their movement, their comfort in that harsh environment, was incredibly beautiful and again, elemental; I knew I was watching something very very old, and that human beings really were, at one time, very small in that landscape. Now there are many more questions to ask: who is the real predator, who will protect whom, and will all the political issues soon be dwarfed by the greater one of climate change?

Next: preparing the dead for their final journey, in Japan

Comments

[MouseMouse]

I adore the Nordic region and am very interested in the lives of the Saami people so I will try to see this film if at all possible, thank you

[zuleme]

Having lived in Sweden with my Swedish husband, we look forward to seeing that one. Wish I could be up there at the festival but these last days of summer are wonderful here in the mountains.

[Robb]

Kia ora Beth,
Reads like a film to see. Those questions you pose have me deep in thought. The interplay of nature with man and government. The wolves and reindeer no doubt kept things in balance, the arrival of man added another element which forever altered that balance, no doubt to the detriment of the wolf. Legislation and government that save the wolf but wipe out a culture and way of life. Heavy stuff. And global warming looms over all. Hope this film makes it over here. Cheers.
Rangimarie,
Robb

[Nancy]

How exciting it sounds - the festival. And many people talking movies all at once. The questions you raised are disquieting indeed. We can only wait until the answers are visited upon us.

[m]

Chariots of Fire - one of the races was shot at my school's sports field. I don't know why I'm telling as I utterly loathed and hated sports at school. Memories of playing hockey while it snowed in the dark. Changing in unheated changing rooms.

If anything by Harutyun Khachatryan is on at the festival do go and see it. Edinburgh International Festival have shown a few of his films and The Return of the Poet is a documentary (without dialogue) which I found quite compelling.

http://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/reviews.php?id=5126