Árru

Bluesky

Modern concerns are married to the ancient and elemental in the debut from Norwegian Sámi filmmaker Elle Sofe Sara, threading traditional yoik music throughout the narrative. Maia (Sara Marielle Gaup Beaska) is a traditional reindeer in the Sápmi region, which arcs across Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. The connection between her and the landscape is emphasised in the film’s opening minutes, as she helps a distressed reindeer in snowy conditions, shot with an empathetic feel for the landscape by Cecilie Semec, who also shot last year’s Norwegian Golden Bear winner Dreams. Maia’s livelihood, and that of her daughter Ailin (Ayla Garen Nutti) and brother Danel (Simon Issát Marainen) is threatened, however, by a mining project that could swallow their ancestral lands.

What sounds like a set up of people versus a corporation, however, turns out to be only part of the story, as Sara is equally interested in domestic distress. This increasingly comes to the fore after the return of Maia and Danel’s older brother Lemme (Mikkel Gaup). A successful campaigner in Canada, his arrival helps galvanise the action of the local community but, at the same time, it’s evident his presence is a thorn in the side of the taciturn Danel for reasons that are slowly laid out.

Gaup Beaska is an accomplished yoiker, so perfectly cast as Maia, the primal pull of this often ululating music matched by lyrics that speak of her character's connection to her Sámi culture. The first-time feature-making shows in conversations which feel a little flat in places and there's a lack of connective tissue between scenes that hampers the pace but the choreography of key moments of the music brings the elemental and primal pull of it to the fore, evoking not just Maia’s present but her past and lineage.

While highlighting the cultural specificity of the Sámi, Sara is unsentimental about it. Where non-Sámi directors might seek to glossily romanticise the situation, she instead takes a clear-eyed view of the problems which exist in the community where the family lives, just as they do in any other place. Sara highlights the way issues can be brushed under the carpet to avoid the intrusion of outsiders, especially those who have a history of colonisation and oppression.

Although the lead character is technically Maia, change through the generations is highlighted, with Ailin’s experience a key element of the narrative. For that reason, Árru could just as easily have screened in the Generation section of Berlinale, rather than Panorama, and it might yet find its most welcoming audiences in the older teen age group, where environmental and family concerns often burn bright.

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