Speaking about Lappland, today we watched a great movie called Ofelas/Pathfinder from 1987.
Ofelas is a Norwegian adventure story about the conflict between Sami people and Chudes. Chudes in the film are depicted as a band of merciless robbers which kill anyone who comes into their path, man, woman or child. The main character is a young man called Aigin who comes home from the day hunting only to find his family slaughtered by them.
Though wounded, Aigin manages to escape on one ski and is later rescued by another group of Sami, led by a wise shaman/pathfinder in whose village he meets his love interest, the girl who takes care of him while he is recovering from his injuries. Aigin is determined to avenge his family and tries to encourage the men to stay and fight, but they think differently. Chudes are trained killers, with better skills and weapons, and a group of hunters is hardly a match for them...
What you will see in this movie is very beautiful Nordic nature in winter, with lots of snow and ice, some of the old traditions of Sami tribes, bear hunting, skiing, scenes of daily life in a tribal village, and in general, quite realistic portrayal of how cruel men can be to each other when it comes to it.
What you won't see in this movie will be unrealistic fighting scenes lasting 20 minutes, warrior females in fur bikinis besting men twice their size, and anything overtly sexualised.
Here is the link to YouTube trailer. The movie can be watched whole on YouTube in Norwegian (called Veiviseren), and there is Part 1 available currently with English subtitles.
I must watch that.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Sami people, their traditional costumes show that it is possible to be warm in skirts, too:
http://mylittlenorway.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/sami-woman-reindeer-racing.jpg
It is amazing how people manage to show the gender gap with clothes even in the coldest possible circumstances. Here are Nenets women from Siberia:
http://www.yamalpeninsulatravel.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Yamal-trip-2-183.jpg
And with men:
http://afamily1.vcmedia.vn/k:phDjD3OUT5HdePSpaPZ9kF7jxR5WXL/Image/2015/01/RY.0022-27_P-(1)-8c38b/rung-minh-canh-bo-toc-an-thit-ca-song-va-uong-mau-tuoi.JPG
A nenets couple:
http://arcticcircle.uconn.edu/HistoryCulture/images/nenetcouple.gif
It is too bad wearing a scarf around your head is nowadays so compound to islam. I find it very pretty and feminine and women here have been wearing headscarves forever.
Housewife from Finland,
DeleteIf you are interested in wearing scarfs
http://wrapunzel.com/
I find this site the best and the most beautiful around.
Thanks for the link. I would really like wearing scarfs because it flatter my face -and I like to protect my head from cold in the winter or sun in the summer.
DeleteAnd by scarf I mean kerchief. I finnish they are the same word but I just learned that kerchief is something you cover your head with and scarf is around your neck?
ReplyDelete'warrior females in fur bikinis...' :-D Oh Sanne, thank you for a good laugh! You really do have the gift of finding right words!! :-)
ReplyDeleteBut, seriously speaking, it is difficult to find a good movie (less than 10 years old) without sexy female warriors, living dead, transformers, vampires and such...
I'm allergic to warrior females:) There isn't even one of them in my book.
DeleteYes I am seriously sick of female warriors. They are everywhere now. You can't even find an action movie one without them. It seems to have only gotten worse in the past decade. I think it also distorts our perception of reality as well.
DeleteI'm getting sick and tired with american movies and tv-shows. I would love for example Game of Thrones, but it is really annoyng how often they visit brothels in that show -far more often and longer times than in the books. And if it really is necessary to visit brothels, is it really necessary to make it so very clear that all the women shave their lady parts? (I don't mind people shaving, I just don't want to see it. And it makes no sense; almost all men have stubbly beards so there is obviously no razors in Westeros. Well, I guess they wax then.)
ReplyDeleteMy point in this not-so-very-ladylike- rant is that nowadays it is really hard to avoid seeing genitalia on movies or tv-series. Even otherwise very good series try to increase the viewing figures with nudity. I wonder how distressing it must be to teenagers, both boys and girls.
Off topic again: I have been binge-reading this blog and you Sanne are so very right when you wrote that maybe ladies should try to avoid political arguments in internet (and IRL, of course.) I just ended up quarreling about politics in facebook and realized how much it upsets me. I have thought that it is my duty to try to make people "see the light" but maybe it is not worth all that displeasure -and really none of my business.
Miriam and Housewife, that's why I'm trying to promote quality entertainment on my blog.
ReplyDeleteFurther, I'd like to remind everybody that this blog is also read by men so could we avoid references to who shaves what, please? Thanks!
Of course. I did think that maybe I was being too outspoken. It is far too easy to be that when one writes anonymiously internet.
Delete