Welcome back to Dark Corners Streaming.
Estonian film, November, which you can find on Amazon Prime, is one I knew nothing about going in and...
that’s two minutes in and it gets weirder,
but you’d never know it from people’s reaction to this apparition.
What I liked most about this film – and I liked this film – is how it makes the supernatural everyday.
For these peasants, magic is just part of life
'Hello'
and pretty soon it is for us too,
it’s amazing how fast you buy into a world where the dead drop round for tea,
a world of witches,
and werewolves,
and where none of this is remarkable.
I loved this world, particularly in the nearness of the next.
Contributing to this world creation is the striking black and white cinematography of Mart Taniel
which makes November seem like Carl Theodor Dreyer and Kaneto Shindo got together to make a folk horror.
Yes, it looks that good.
The story focuses on Liina, a great performance by Rea Lest,
a peasant girl in love with a peasant boy who is in turn in love with the local baron’s daughter.
Alongside this there is some social commentary,
history,
the arranged marriage, which is a more or less constant of this type of period drama,
and brushes with the plague.
In common with films like Gwen and 2018’s The Golem, both of which we have reviewed,
there is an overarching narrative of survival in a harsh time and environment
and a question of what are you willing to do,
how far are you willing to go, to survive, to succeed, or indeed to be with the one you love.
And spiritual consequences here are of course very real.
That said, you could also see this is as a pretty standard tragic love triangle,
that happens to take place in this unique world.
The film it most reminded me of is 1952’s The White Reindeer but even there,
the supernatural is something other, not something you live alongside.
This isn’t the only film to do that, but I struggle to think of one in which it’s so matter of fact.
So, If you’re looking for a horror, with the understanding that horror should scare you,
this isn’t it, but if you’re looking for a drama set in a horror space, this is the film.
Of course no one ever looks for that – I certainly wasn’t – but finding it was a treat.
It’s not perfect; it could be tighter, some of its digressions – fabulous thought they look – are too digressive,
and while I was one hundred percent engaged with Liina, there was a vague sense of; any story will do,
we just want to play with this world
but I’m willing to forgive so much because it brought me into that world,
and all credit to director Rainer Sarnet for making it so believable.
Thanks for watching. Have you seen this film yet and if so what did you think of it?
What are the films where the world really captured you – it’s very often a personal thing.
Let us know in the comments below.