Yahoo Lifestyle ‘Folktales’ Review: Anxious Teens Learn New Skills at an Arctic Folk High School
In the observational “Folktales,” Oscar-nominated docmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (“Jesus Camp”) once again consider education and social context, a concept that marked their first collaboration, “The Boys of Baraka” in 2005. They follow a trio of teenagers taking a “gap year” at a Norwegian Folk High School in Pasvik, located 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle. The nine-month program, teaching outdoor survival skills and dog mushing as well as Norwegian language and culture, is open to teens from all over the world, although how the students are chosen, how many there are and what it costs to attend is never specified. What shines through loud and clear is the importance of the feelings of self-confidence and direction engendered by acquiring such wilderness skills and deploying them successfully.
With the epic, primal beauty of its remote location, “Folktales” scores high on visual aesthetics, but rates lower on actual content, as the youth characters aren’t as fully-fledged as one could wish and the school experience is not enough of a trial to provide real drama. Nevertheless, audiences will likely respond to what constitutes the most dynamic part of the film, the powerful bond developed between the callow students and the charismatic, energetic, loudly baying sled dogs as they undertake challenges together.
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Helmers Ewing and Grady focus on three 19-year-old students who appear quite vulnerable, yet are also open to talking on-camera. They include pleasingly plump, small-town Norwegian girl Hege, who is coming off a bad year during which her beloved father was killed during an argument. As she starts the program, she finds life chaotic and can barely stand to be parted from her smartphone and makeup. Ultimately, she proves to be a good sport, with a talent for working with the dogs. Viewers can chart how far she comes over the course of her studies as she finally appears without the phone, cosmetics and nail polish.
There’s also another Norwegian, tall Bjørn Tore, who self-identifies as a nerd and feels that others find him annoying. He confesses to having trouble making friends, yet one of the sweetest aspects of the film is witnessing his burgeoning friendship with Romain, a good-looking but painfully anxious lad from the Netherlands. Beset by negative thoughts, Romain’s social anxiety led to him dropping out of high school, and he hopes that the Norwegian program will provide him the chance to turn his life around. It’s unclear as to whether the other students feel as directionless as these three, but as the filmmakers show, the program clearly benefits their protagonists.
For the enthusiastic dog-sled teachers Iselin and Thor-Atle, the dogs, Siberian huskies from Russia, always prove the key to unlocking something inside the students. The canines accept them and love them as they are. They help to awaken the students’ “Stone-Age brains” in which patience and awareness are major virtues. Sadly, it seems a missed opportunity that the film doesn’t develop the teachers further as characters, since their encouragement and compassion are crucial to the students’ development as they take solo steps in the wild.
Premiering at the Sundance Film Festival while California still battles record-breaking infernos, the scenes of the students learning to build outdoor fires that spark and jump unpredictably now play far differently than when they were shot. It feels uncomfortable that there is no discussion included of what to do if a fire gets out of hand.
Given that the folk high schools themselves teach Norse mythology, Ewing and Grady incorporate it into their visuals, particularly the tale of the three “Norns,” or fates who weave a future at the foot of a tree of life. Their repeated use of an imposing tree wrapped in red yarn, trailing red ribbons is beautiful but becomes too repetitive.
Cameramen Lars Erlend Tubaas Øymo and Tor Edvin Eliassen deserve kudos for capturing the grandeur of the Northern Lights and the exhilarating and sometimes dangerous pace of a sledge drawn through low-hanging woods by dogs that love to run. The sound team rightfully emphasize the special aural environment of the cold and remote place from the creaking of trees to the Arctic bird calls to the panting of the mushing dogs.
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