NOVEMBER Review

RELEASE DATE: February 23, 2018
DIRECTOR: Rainer Sarnet
MPAA RATING: NR
RUNTIME: 115 minutes

With fairy tales providing insight into a culture’s relationship with the mythic past that inspires its worldview, it’s necessary to see them as complex works that reconcile bleak aspects of human nature. November emphasizes this in visceral ways.

Shot in gorgeously high-contrast, black-and-white style, the realms of good and evil are reflected in bright colors that all but blend into snow and ice, with darker tones seeping off the screen into an infinite abyss. An archaic setting – a rural Estonian village in the 18th century – precludes any connections we foreign viewers bring, and a mixture of sturdy period detail with outrageous undertones of fantastical violence and magical realism cement our unease.

Yet this take is exclusive to an outsider’s perspective, and it changes the reading of the film. November is based on a popular novel from its home country, but the presumably hyper-specific nature of its detail have prevented any international translations. A forbidden romance between a scrappy young farmhand named Hans (Jorgen Liik) with a visiting German countess (Jette Loona Hermanis) causes strife with Hans’ assumed fiancée and childhood friend Liina (Rea Lest).

It’s through this spark that we see the village in all its idiosyncrasies. Pagan heritage conflicts with imported Christian culture, and the constant presence of “kratts” – somewhat autonomous proto-robots made from tree branches and the skulls of cattle – are eccentric analogues all their own.

With many children killed by the black plague (depicted as a mysterious visitor), most of the hamlet’s residents are elderly, further nailing down November’s focus on a fundamental rift between the past and the future. Though every character makes use of the magic elements that poke through each locale, director Rainer Sarnet emphasizes clashes in multiple forms: spiritual, personal and physical.

We consider the entire village to be enchanted to some extent, so there’s never a question of an ongoing flux. Volatility is the norm, and with an anachronistic score that’s peppered with electric guitar riffs alongside the cinematography’s heavy punch, the movie is aesthetically advantageous in its sharp tinge. Paradoxically, the characters’ odd behavior is part of a deep-rooted truth. Moral corruption wreaks havoc on their collective psyche, as desperate hunger and poverty have long since washed away traditional notions of upright living. It’s all a madcap survival game.

This is to be taken as a portrait, though a non-Estonian audience may have difficulty in determining the line between November’s scripting faults and the cultural barriers that keep it from connecting on a contextual level. Yet Sarnet’s photographic inclinations are universal in their appeal. Characters wander through a cold forest in the dead of night, the trees’ jagged shapes and the filtering of moonlight conjuring up memories of the great Expressionist works.

Or consider the very first scene, when a kratt machine ties up a cow and flies through the air with it, dropping the animal down in front of a farmhouse. It’s surreal art channeling folklore’s disturbing logic, and as a surface collage of images, is immensely intriguing. But we’re locked in the most visible dimension, kept from pushing through to decoding any fables therein.

This doesn’t diminish Sarnet’s accomplishments as a filmmaker, as it has nothing to do with what he has made, but criticism is both an individual response and a work for contributory dialogue. And anyway, November’s largest successes materialize elsewhere. This is a prime and engaging work of startling fantasy, creating a lived-in universe for its fictional creations. Its use of classical literary personification solidifies the impact of its characters’ interactions. Competing iconography and traditional behaviors are twisted up within one another, and even climactic dread carries splashes of ironic beauty.

In the mix, the emotional beats of its core romantic triangle get muddled by the funhouse-mirror slew of visual frenzy. But when the knowingly predictable ending comes around, the accessible reach of those fairy-tale origins reminds us of what unifies these stories.