WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema: The White Reindeer 0:00:02.440 --> 0:00:08.760 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:14.800 Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:17.439 This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:20.440 today on Weird House Cinema we're going to be talking 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:25.159 about the nineteen fifty two finish folk horror film The 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:31.080 White Reindeer, starring Miryami Quosmanan and directed by Eric Blomberg. 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:34.520 If I may say, I think this is the finest 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:36.960 ware ungulate movie I have ever seen. 0:00:38.200 --> 0:00:41.760 It may be the finest ware ungulate movie I can envision, 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:46.280 because the concept to many of you, I imagine were 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:50.479 wolf fans to the last of you, I'm assuming you 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:54.160 might struggle to get excited for a ware reindeer picture. 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:58.320 And yet this one is really good. It's classy, it's 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:01.720 basically art house and has some, you know, almost kind 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:05.559 of documentary vibes to it at times. It's very well 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:09.360 done and ultimately makes you buying completely to this concept 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:12.480 that I have to admit that on the surface, too 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:14.800 many of us might seem a little silly. 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:20.040 Oh by the end, I was terrified of reindeers. Is 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:22.880 that a correct plural would not be Reindeer's it'd still 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:25.919 be reindeer. That's plural. You just to say the dear Yeah, okay, 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:29.440 but yeah. So this movie is set in the culture 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:35.240 of pre Christian Lapland today the northernmost region of Finland, 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:38.959 and The White Reindeer tells a story of love and loneliness, 0:01:39.080 --> 0:01:46.240 of women's dependence and independence in culture, of longing and desire, 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:50.880 of witchcraft, of transformation, and of murder. It's got all 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:53.920 kinds of stuff going on. So the basic premise of 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:57.600 the story is that Pirita, a woman of the north 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:01.880 married to a hard working reindeer herder Lapland, finds herself 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:05.440 unhappy with life, and she seeks the help of a 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:09.280 wizard who prescribes for her a ritual that will make 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:14.280 her irresistible to men. But unfortunately, this magic spell has 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:18.400 a toxic interaction with the pre existing condition of her 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:22.480 being a genetic witch since birth, and instead of merely 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:26.239 becoming the bell of the Ball, Pirita is transformed into 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:32.200 a kind of seductive, somnambulist and reindeer version of a werewolf, 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:35.480 assuming fur and antlers by the light of the moon 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:41.000 and luring unsuspecting herdsmen to their deaths. Now, Rob, there's 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:43.520 one little random claim I read on the Internet that 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:45.760 made a lot more sense of the story to me 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:48.200 after I read it. I don't know this is true, 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:51.840 but it seems likely given the story here. It's not 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:55.959 explained in the story itself, but apparently the Sami people, 0:02:56.040 --> 0:03:01.120 whose culture is depicted in this story. Among the Samni people, 0:03:01.760 --> 0:03:04.799 it was a common folk belief that there was something 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:09.240 special about a white or albino reindeer, and if you 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:12.240 could catch a wild white reindeer, it would bring you 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:13.160 great fortune. 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:16.320 Yeah, that does help flash things out a little bit. 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:20.799 So the white reindeer has a kind of interesting release history. 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:23.240 I was reading a bit about it in a book 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:27.320 called one hundred European Horror Films, edited by Stephen J. Schneider, 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:31.760 and apparently it's nineteen fifty two debut in the Finnish 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:37.160 capital of Helsinki happened during the summer Olympics in Helsinki, 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:41.279 which resulted in what the author calls near vacant screenings. 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:44.400 Nobody was gone to see it, but so not a 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:47.600 good way to start. But it caught on domestically after this, 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:50.640 in a second run later that summer or maybe in 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:54.600 the fall and it started getting good press and would 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:59.680 eventually become something of an international hit, receiving a number 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:03.160 of wards, including at the con Film Festival. We'll get 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:06.720 into more on that later, but it's kind of interesting 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:10.440 that this was a sort of sensation at the time, 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:12.640 and I think for most of my life I'd never 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:14.720 even heard of it. I never became aware of it 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:15.760 until just recently. 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:18.400 I was not aware of it until you texted me 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:21.279 over the weekend and said, I have chosen for this week. 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:25.600 It's the White Reindeer. And I at the time I 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:27.839 was I was like, of course, you know, one hundred percent. 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:30.159 I'm like, all right, let's do Let's do the white Reindeer. 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:33.200 But I was also thinking, this is an interesting summer choice. 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:34.680 But of course we just did a cour Stuff to 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:37.400 Blowy Night episode on skiing, so it's not out out 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:40.760 of keeping with us to do something that seems seasonally opposite. 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:44.159 But oh, ice skating, Yeah, ice skating, Sorry, not skiing. 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:46.839 We haven't done skiing yet, but we should skiing. 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:48.760 There's a lot of skiing in the movie. 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:52.800 She But but now that you mentioned that this originally 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:55.520 came out in the summer, it is fitting that we're 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:56.719 talking about it in the summer. 0:04:57.000 --> 0:05:00.000 I mean, I happen to personally love counter seasonal programming. 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:02.080 Yeah, you know, that's just me. 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:06.000 Now. I think it could be interesting to compare this 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:09.440 film to other Rare Beast movies we've covered on the show, 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:11.520 But maybe we should come back to that later or 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:15.000 just as it occurs to us throughout. One thing I 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:17.000 do think we should talk about briefly at the top 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:22.839 is this movie's visual stylistic virtue, As many reviewers mentioned 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:26.039 this as a real highlight of the film, the bold, 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:29.920 stark way that it looks. It was shot on location 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:34.320 in real snowy landscapes of northern Finland, in Lapland, And 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:37.280 so you get these the fells, you know, these kind 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:42.240 of like like low sloping or rounded mountaintops or hilltops, 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:44.880 many of which are bear some of which have just 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:49.480 kind of I don't know, sad looking like snow covered 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:51.200 tree limbs poking out. 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:54.400 Like every portion of the tree, trees iced over in 0:05:54.480 --> 0:06:00.000 ways that those of us in more southern climate's scared 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:02.520 can imagine. Like it looks almost Sussian, you know, the 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:03.920 way these trees are iced over. 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:06.359 Yeah, true Arctic strangeness. 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:10.120 Yeah, Jack frost hit this landscape hard, but also. 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:13.200 Like herds of reindeer stretching to the horizon in some shots, 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:16.400 those are quite striking. And then these little and then 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:21.400 the way that the movie deals with both absolutely empty 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:26.080 expanses and then these little closed boxes in the homes. 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:28.760 You know that. So you'll go out in this field 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:31.279 and it's just like seeing far to the horizon and 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:34.080 there's nothing there but a few like you know, leafless 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:38.120 shrubs or this, you know, this train of animals just 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:41.599 stretching over the horizon and there's like nothing else to see. 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:43.920 But then you arrive at the Wizard Shack and you 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:46.480 go inside and it looks like it's about like eight 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:50.400 feet by eight feet. Inside it's like tiny but crammed 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:51.400 with evil magic. 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:53.560 Yeah, now that you mentioned it that way reminds me 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:55.920 of some past discussions we had on the on the 0:06:56.240 --> 0:06:58.640 Core and stuff to blow your mind episodes about the 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:01.200 art of Tibet and like in tear spaces into Bet 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:07.120 interior sacred spaces versus the exterior world where you have 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:09.800 like huge sky and sweeping vistas, And we have a 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:12.080 similar vibe going on here, you know, with these these 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:15.600 little enclosed often you know, very dark, cozy spaces, and 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:20.120 then outside it's just like a white wasteland, but in 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:21.320 the most beautiful sense. 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:23.760 Yeah, these things filmed in a way that is both 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:25.080 frightening and beautiful. 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:27.440 If we haven't mentioned it already, this is a black 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:30.640 and white film, which, especially in these shots of the 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:34.000 of the landscape, seem very fitting. 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:34.240 You know. 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:37.480 It's it's like everything is very very white, and the 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:41.200 shadows have this this depth to them, and then the 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:44.920 indoor scenes, especially at night, also feel it feels appropriate. 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:48.200 I will say there are a few scenes of just 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:51.920 sort of normal everyday life or celebration within the community 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:54.040 that I kind of wished we could have seen in color, 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:57.920 because I feel like those were Yeah, I just kind 0:07:57.920 --> 0:07:59.960 of wanted to see the colors there. But on the whole, 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:02.800 oh yeah, the black and white and this is absolutely beautiful. 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:05.640 I just realized there's really no way around it. But 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:09.559 we're gonna say the words reindeer and snow so many 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:12.080 times in this episode. I was just like going through 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:14.680 my notes trying to think of synonyms, so I wasn't 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:18.080 repeating myself so much. But in a way it's fitting 0:08:18.120 --> 0:08:21.400 because this movie is just it's just plowing straight into 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:24.640 your brain with reindeer and snow, there's so much of both. 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:28.000 Most of the location is snow, and there are far 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:31.280 far more reindeer in the picture than human beings. Like 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:33.559 it's just it's just a fact. There's just so many 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:36.520 reindeer on the screen at different points. But in a 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:39.560 way that is again, it feels very when you see 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:42.760 people interacting with the reindeer. When you see it feels 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:46.800 almost like a documentary, like a snapshot of life. There's 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:48.640 not a sense of like, all right, let's get the 0:08:48.679 --> 0:08:50.880 reindeer wrangler out there so we can get this shot. 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:53.760 Like this, this film feels very real. 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:58.040 I believe the director of it had made documentaries and 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:00.760 maybe even on this subject right correct. 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:04.040 His first short picture as well, we'll discuss here in 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:09.400 a minute, was about Lapland reindeer herders, So it's yeah, 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:12.760 it's very fitting. I should also point out that this 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:16.240 film is in many spaces very light on dialogue. It 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:19.199 has almost a silent film sensibility. 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:21.600 That's notable in multiple ways. It does contribute to the 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:24.280 mood of the film because there are long silent stretches 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:28.760 where there's just music, no talking in between the dialogue scenes, 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:31.560 and that I think that does contribute to the kind 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:35.440 of lonely, eerie feeling that they're attempting to conjure, especially 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:39.680 when we're just alone with Perita. Yeah, but in addition 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:43.400 to that the lack of dialogue, it shows a real 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:46.800 what seems to me to be a conscious choice of 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:52.400 narrative restraint that keeps many things about characters motivations and 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:56.000 thoughts a mystery very different than I think most other 0:09:56.360 --> 0:09:57.719 movies at this time would have done. 0:09:57.760 --> 0:09:57.840 That. 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:01.120 I feel like if this same kind of subject had 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:03.840 been approached by an American filmmaker at this time, there 0:10:03.840 --> 0:10:08.520 would have been a lot more voiceover explaining the interior 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:12.920 thoughts of characters of perioda and aslock. But we don't 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:15.600 get that, so very often we're just sort of left 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:18.160 wondering what they're thinking about what's going on. 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:21.320 Yeah, it has a very European art house sensibility in 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:25.839 that respect. And yeah, and there will be no transformation 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:27.880 scenes in this in the way that you get them 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:33.480 in a certainly American and many European examples of ladder 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:37.120 monster movies and so specifically were Wolf movies. But then again, 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:40.000 you don't need a transformation scene for a great shape 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:40.840 shifter movie. 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:44.440 That's right, I mean, And in fact, this movie it 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:47.240 doesn't really have a lot in the way of special effects, 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:50.160 but it doesn't really need them because the way it 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:54.439 handles its subject matter is just very natural and graceful. 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:54.640 Like. 0:10:56.200 --> 0:10:59.440 So, there's a character who transforms into a reindeer in 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:02.640 these in the murder scenes, and you'll see her just 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:05.240 sort of leap out of frame, and in the next frame, 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:07.760 the reindeer leaps into frame. And it's a very simple 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:11.280 way to depict this kind of transformation without showing it 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:13.760 in frame, and it works just fine. 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:16.200 Yeah, this reminds me I want to mention really quickly. 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:19.440 When I was looking up the reviews on letterbox for 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:23.080 this film, one of the people I followed, John from 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:26.800 Video Drum here in Atlanta, made the comment somehow this 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:29.880 is one of those low budget or enormous budget watching 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:34.200 experiences which I can totally I can totally feel, because again, 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:35.480 I think a lot of it has to do with 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:39.559 that naturalistic vibe, this kind of like documentary feel to it. 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:41.400 At times, you can feel like, well, all they did 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:43.480 was turn on the camera and this is just this 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:46.120 is just what it is there. This is life. But 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:48.240 then again, when you start thinking about, like, you know, 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:51.120 any documentary about filmmaking you've seen, like, no, maybe this 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:56.480 was absolutely an enormously expensive picture. It's just hard to tell, especially, 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:59.560 you know, being so far from this environment, and from 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:00.240 this time. 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:02.079 I agree that it feels that way, though, I guess 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:05.520 we should just flag that I don't necessarily want to 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:10.320 vouch for this film's cultural authenticity and how it depicts 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:12.400 the Sami culture and all that, because I don't really 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:15.040 know how well it captures that. I didn't find sources 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:19.240 addressing this. It clearly is trying. It seems to me 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:22.480 to be trying to capture a kind of cultural authenticity, 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:25.160 but I don't know how well in reality it actually 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:25.679 did that. 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:28.400 Right, We can point to other examples from the nineteen 0:12:28.440 --> 0:12:32.160 fifties and different cinema editions where there's not a lot 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:35.560 of finesse shown in sort of cultural depictions. So yeah, 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:38.240 we would. I think it's reasonable for us to have 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:49.520 a healthy amount of skepticism, all right. You know, I 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:54.240 don't know if this had a trailer, or if whatever 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:57.440 kind of trailer it originally had in Finland, if it 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:01.360 exists online anywhere, we may the air just a little 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:03.720 bit of what I think is a modern trailer for 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:07.760 it that Eureka Entertainment put out. Eureka Entertainment is responsible 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:10.200 for what I believe is the main Blu Ray option 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:12.920 for this picture. I did not watch it on this 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:16.079 Blue ray. I streamed it. It's widely available for streaming 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:19.680 wherever you get your streaming pictures. But it looks like 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:21.520 the Blu ray is a really nice package with a 0:13:21.600 --> 0:13:49.840 number of extras and menuima, a lench line and. 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:51.680 Yellow and took. 0:13:53.760 --> 0:14:32.960 All right, Well, let's let's get into the uh casting 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:37.800 crew here a little bit. And I always want to 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:42.680 apologize for any pronunciation errors with names and such. We 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:46.240 haven't done really any finish films before. We've done some 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:47.800 Russo finish co productions. 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:52.400 Yeah Rose Russo finished things, right, yeah, yeah, But this 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:54.560 is I think that this is our first like purely 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:57.760 finished film from the golden age of Finnish cinema. 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:00.920 And don't understand. And I want to note I'm going 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:06.360 to refer several times to the Juicy Awards Jussi. There 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:10.040 may be more USY Awards. They're essentially like Finnish Academy 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:13.160 Awards and I think maybe there's a little Emmy energy 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:15.920 in there, because I think they also recognized television projects, 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:18.200 or at least came to at some point. They've been 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:22.800 held since nineteen forty four, and I'm going to refer 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:26.160 back to them several different times here. Okay, so the 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:28.720 key individuals, as we've already noted, are going to be 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:33.160 Eric Blomberg, who is credited as the director, one of 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:36.920 the writers, certainly the cinematographer, and also the editor, as 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:43.240 well as his wife mir Jammi Kuzmannin And She Is 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:46.720 Our Star, she is also credited as one of the writers. 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:51.479 But I was reading about her specifically on a website 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:54.960 called Nordic Women in Film dot com, and in this 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:59.320 this write up they mentioned just how closely these two 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:02.600 work together their projects. I think the quote is from 0:16:02.640 --> 0:16:04.720 one of them, is that when it came to projects 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:06.440 they worked on, you would have to use a pair 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:11.120 of tweezers to separate what each one did. So this 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:14.640 division of labor here we get is in many ways 0:16:15.120 --> 0:16:17.560 maybe just a reflection of what their backgrounds were. Her 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:21.240 background wasn't acting. His background was in cinematography and was 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:24.360 behind the camera, and therefore they're credited as such, and 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:26.960 it's also been pointed out that there were very few 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:30.560 female directors in Finnish cinema at the time, so maybe 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:33.640 that was another reason that her name wasn't at the top. 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:37.640 But like they work so closely together, just keep that 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:39.760 in mind as we're talking about these divisions, because it 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:42.800 seems like this whole project was a collaboration. 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:43.960 Right, so it should be kind of thought of as 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:45.880 that them as co filmmakers. 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:49.560 Yes, yeah, and they were very open yeah about this. 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:53.680 So let's start with Eric though he lived nineteen thirteen 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:58.400 through nineteen ninety six, Finish cinematographer, producer, screenwriter and director, 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:01.120 not to be confused with the Swedish poet of the 0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:04.879 same name. This Blomberg started off as a cinematographer with 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:07.399 credits going back to nineteen thirty six, and he was 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:10.960 a producer from nineteen thirty eight onward. His first directorial 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:14.800 credit was a nineteen forty seven documentary short titled With 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:17.320 the Reindeer about the reindeer of Lapland. 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:20.520 Yeah, as we alluded to earlier, that is not surprising 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:22.920 if you've seen the film that he had shot documentary 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:27.600 footage about reindeer herding or about reindeer in general. There 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:31.080 is a I don't even know how to identify what 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:33.879 the points leading to this impression are, but there's just 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:37.760 a feeling of familiarity with the subject, if that makes 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:38.320 any sense. 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:42.600 Absolutely, yeah, and it was well received. This documentary short 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:45.040 won a USYE Award. I'm going to go ahead just 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:47.800 say ucy instead of juicy, just because it sounds better 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:50.760 to me. But that may also be incorrect, okay. He 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:53.440 followed this short up with a handful of additional shorts 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:57.199 before tackling this his first feature length film, again a 0:17:57.240 --> 0:18:02.760 collaboration with his wife. She co wrote it, and again 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:04.720 that they were you'd have to use a tweezer to 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:07.359 separate what they were each working on in their own words. 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:11.480 As you pointed out, nobody seemed to go to see 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:14.360 it at first because they released it during the summer Olympics, 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:16.960 but then it began to pick up steam domestically and 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:21.040 then ultimately was very well received internationally. Not only did 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:24.520 it earn them a UC for cinematography, it was nominated 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:26.960 for the Grand Prize of the cons Film Festival in 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:31.679 fifty three, and it won in its fairy Tale Film category, 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:35.040 which excited me and I had to research this. I'm like, 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:38.080 what else won? What else was nominated? I don't think 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:42.280 this category existed previously or afterwards, So I'm not sure 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:44.919 what the story is here. If they were if they 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:48.080 invented a category to honor this film, which if that's 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:52.000 the case, great, this film totally earned it, or if 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:54.719 they were like, yes, fairy tale films they need their 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:57.439 own category, and then it just they decided not to 0:18:57.480 --> 0:18:58.680 keep doing it. I'm not sure. 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:01.360 I'm getting out of the pitch. Bring it back, Bring 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:03.359 it back to the Cohn judges. We need a fairy 0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:04.760 tale film category. 0:19:05.040 --> 0:19:07.520 Do it? Yeah, and maybe you'd encourage even more fairy 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:09.160 tale films. I don't think we have enough of them. 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:11.760 So Blomberg followed this up with a handful of feature 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:14.640 link films, some more short works, and finally a couple 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:18.000 of TV movies in sixty six and sixty eight. Of these, 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:22.520 his nineteen fifty five film Killouse also won a Ucy 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:26.040 for cinematography, but The White Reindeer I Believe remains his 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:30.000 most well known film, certainly internationally, and continues to resonate 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:32.200 not only as an example of Finnish cinema, during it 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:35.679 from the golden era of Finnish cinema, but also as 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:37.800 a rich entry in Global full car. 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:40.960 I've read that Blomberg did not do a lot else 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:43.680 in this sort of magical category. 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:46.119 Right, that's I'm to understand that as well. Looking at 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:50.359 his other pictures, I don't think anything else could qualify 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:53.159 as you know, specula as having a speculative element. 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:57.080 Okay, but that was Eric Blomberg. Let's talk Miriami Kosmanan. 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:01.359 Yeah. So Kospannen lived nineteen fifteen through nineteen sixty three. 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:06.520 She plays our Witch Reindeer, Finnish actress, writer and longtime 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:11.200 wife of Eric Blomberg. I was reading her this profile 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:14.040 of her in her work on Nordic Women in Film, 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:15.360 and they point out that she was like a real 0:20:15.400 --> 0:20:17.800 wild child as a kid, like she played sports with 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:21.000 the boys. She loved swimming and fishing. There's some story 0:20:21.000 --> 0:20:24.760 about her putting out a fire in their house. So yeah, 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:27.080 she seemed to be a real spirited individual. And she 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:30.800 was active from thirty seven through fifty six. And they're 0:20:31.160 --> 0:20:34.879 a good I think a dozen collaborations between her and 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:38.679 her husband. She is often credited as a writer and 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:41.920 sometimes she is an actress, but this film, in particular, 0:20:41.920 --> 0:20:44.760 I'm to understand, was a case where it was at 0:20:44.840 --> 0:20:48.199 least partially inspired by a dream she had of a 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:50.520 woman turning into a reindeer. And I think it's also, 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:55.119 you know, as we'll discuss, based on some existing bits 0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:58.040 of folklore and Bret and Sagas and so forth, but 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:00.480 also there's a dream element, something that you know, that 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:05.040 emerges personally from her. There's also a quote in that 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:08.280 article about how like they had a unified vision for 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:12.399 this picture and that they each could see every scene 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:16.520 before they shot it. So she's a really beautiful thought, 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:17.160 I think. 0:21:17.320 --> 0:21:20.760 Especially for a film that has deadly premonitions within it. Yeah. 0:21:20.920 --> 0:21:25.280 Yeah, yeah, yeah, they yeah, they saw the vision together. 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:28.520 Other notable films of hers include nineteen thirty eight's The 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:32.200 Song of the Scarlet Flower, which, like much of her filmography, 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:34.679 was a romance drama. Again, I don't think there are 0:21:34.720 --> 0:21:38.359 any other films in her filmography that you could think 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:41.320 of as being horror, fantasy, or certainly sci fi. I 0:21:41.400 --> 0:21:44.720 think The White Reindeer stands alone. She won a UC 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:47.520 for Best Leading Actress for her role in The White Reindeer. 0:21:47.760 --> 0:21:51.920 And yeah, she's amazing in this It's a captivating performance. 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:58.760 You know, she's often silently channeling these intense feelings of loneliness, 0:21:58.520 --> 0:22:02.359 of love and hope and eventually otherworldly power. 0:22:02.680 --> 0:22:04.760 She really carries the film. I mean, it is her 0:22:04.760 --> 0:22:07.480 burden to carry, and she takes it up that snowy hill. 0:22:08.280 --> 0:22:11.680 We spend huge amounts of the movie just alone with her, 0:22:11.920 --> 0:22:16.399 with nobody else, and even in scenes where she's with 0:22:16.520 --> 0:22:19.679 other people, often it's just sort of the audience in 0:22:19.760 --> 0:22:22.800 her and the other people are kind of peripheral. Yeah, 0:22:23.680 --> 0:22:28.159 And so we have and it's a really interesting way 0:22:28.280 --> 0:22:33.200 to render a protagonist in this way because we our 0:22:33.280 --> 0:22:35.520 main relationship is with her, and we spend all this 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:39.520 time with her. But also she remains so mysterious through 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:42.000 the entire film, and we even at the end of 0:22:42.040 --> 0:22:44.520 the story, I think there are many questions we can 0:22:44.560 --> 0:22:47.000 still have about her that aren't really answered directly. 0:22:47.560 --> 0:22:50.720 Yeah, because you know, ultimately she gets some great Dracula moments, 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:55.560 and in a sense it's going to follow some the 0:22:55.600 --> 0:22:58.600 trajectory you might expect from a were wolf picture. But 0:22:58.680 --> 0:23:01.440 yet at the end there's not this feeling of Welp, 0:23:01.520 --> 0:23:03.600 she was a monster and thank goodness, we killed her. 0:23:04.400 --> 0:23:07.359 It feels a lot, a lot sadder than that. 0:23:07.680 --> 0:23:08.960 Yeah, it's very it's tragic. 0:23:09.240 --> 0:23:11.359