Despite a strong finish ‘Folktales’ comes up short
If you love dogs, you’ll want to let out a loud yelp for “Folktales.” It has canines that will entertain, inspire, and in one case, make you cry like a baby. And if the film had been entirely about them, I’d give this doc from Oscar nominees Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (“Jesus Camp”) a big fat A. But alas, it’s more about pups of the human variety, yapping about their seemingly insurmountable insecurities.
We follow these downtrodden teens during the course of their gap year at a Scandinavian “folk school,” a sort of coming-of-age weigh station north of the Arctic Circle, where they’ll spend the next nine months learning to tap into their “Stone Age brains.” Deeply rooted in Norse mythology, the curriculum includes such positively primitive skills as weaving, hunting, surviving outdoors in sub-zero conditions, and last but not least, dog sledding.
The idea is to turn back the clock on three dozen or so 18- and 19-year-olds whose psychological problems have been exacerbated by the tumult of modern life in which the preponderance of cell phones and computer screens has rendered them lonely and detached.
In the name of brevity, Ewing and Grady single out three of these largely despondent kids: Hege, grieving the loss of her father, murdered in a bar fight; sad clown, Bjørn Tore, a self-effacing lad whose peers accurately label him as “nice, but annoying”; and Romain, a painfully shy boy with almost zero self-confidence due to his acute social anxiety. The filmmakers embed with the trio as they, with minimal coaching, confront and attempt to overcome their personal challenges before summer begins.
There are dozens of such Upward Bound-like retreats throughout Scandinavia, but Ewing and Grady focus on the Pasvik Folk High School, 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle in Finnmark, Norway. As you can imagine, the wooded, mountainous surroundings are a little slice of heaven, ideally captured through autumn, winter and spring by cinematographers Lars Erlend Tubaas Øymo and Tor Edvin Eliassen. They provide many panoramic views of the natural beauty, especially the Northern Lights, but it’s when they get up close with the dozens of sled dogs that your pulse begins to quicken.
These are gorgeous animals, most of them Siberian Huskies with adorable faces that belie a fierce pride in pulling heavy sleds through the worst of weather conditions. Courageous is an understatement. One of the pooches is about to become a mommy, and wait until you see her pups. But it’s Sautso, a veteran with advanced cancer who steals your heart as he continues a lineage of duty despite his grave illness.
He becomes the responsibility of Hege, who, like all of her classmates, is assigned a dog to care for throughout their tenure at Pasvik. It’s quite moving watching man and beast bond. The kids are as astounded as we are by how affectionate their charges can be. The canines, along with the sledding instructors, Iselin and Thor-Atle, are facilitators, but the onus for growth and maturity is placed squarely on the teens. They are their own motivators in tackling fears and finding the path to serenity.
We’re no doubt meant to be stirred, but too much of “Folktales” is ponderous and pretentious. The overreliance on red yarn to denote certain elements of Norse mythology is a bit much. Each strand, we learn, is symbolic of a life experience, as it “magically” wraps around the “Tree of Life” until it’s completely swathed in scarlet by year’s end. The legend is traced to the revered god, Odin, and the influence of his interactions with the Norns and the three Fates in shaping his destiny.
Moralizing is a central part of the learning process, all in service of boosting esteem and belief in one’s ability to determine the future. Yet, none of these individual journeys fully registers. I kept thinking how similar films, like the recent “Boys State” and “Girls State,” elicited genuine emotion without breaking a sweat. With Ewing and Grady, you can practically see the buttons being pushed.
By the time the movie finally hits its stride, some 90 minutes in, you’ve pretty much checked out, making the final exchange of goodbyes seem more perfunctory than poignant. Worse, like I said, you’re more captivated by the canines than the trials and tribulations of the troubled teens. And because of that failure to connect, “Folktales” ultimately goes to the dogs.
Movie review
Folktales
Rated: Not rated
Featuring: Hege, Bjørn Tore and Romain
Directors: Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady
Runtime: 105 minutes
Where: In theaters Aug. 1 (limited)
Grade: C+
