Directed by Rainer Sarnet, 2017, 115 minutes.

In nineteenth-century Estonia Liina (Rea Lest) falls in love with Hans (Jörgen Liik) who dotes on the unattainable Baroness (Jette Loona Hermanis). As their village struggles to survive plague and hunger Liina and Hans wrestle with their unrequited desires.

In the first few minutes of ‘November’ an ungainly skeletal creature flies like a macabre delivery drone over a beautiful, frozen landscape to deliver a stolen calf to a poor farmer. This strange, haunting film is neither historical drama nor fantasy but something in between. Authors like Isabel Allende, Günter Grass and Salman Rushdie have made magic realism into an incisive literary tool for confronting national trauma. ‘November’, based on a bestselling novel by Estonian author Andrus Kivirähk, is set in a world where magic is part of everyday life. Revisiting tales he heard as a child, Kivirähk seeks modern relevance in folk culture for a comparatively young democracy trying to understand its place in the world and make sense of its violent past.  Rainer Sarnet’s screen adaptation is a treasure trove of arresting imagery: Sequences like a procession of the white-faced dead through a frozen, midnight forest lodge in the memory and mark Sarnet as an imaginative stylist whose work deserves to be better known outside Estonia. He began his career as an animator and ‘November’ occasionally recalls the work of the Brothers Quay, particularly the ‘Stille Nacht’ shorts (1988-1993) with their prancing devils, magic bullets and winter forests but here the tone is less cerebral, more earthy. Cinematographer Mart Taniel used infrared cameras to bleach the image and give the appearance of intense cold; his exquisite black and white photography recalls photogravure or mezzotint, giving the film the appearance of a nineteenth century story book. However, for the serfs who scratch a living in this frigid landscape, dogged by starvation and disease, life is no fairytale.

For viewers outside Estonia some of the imagery in ‘November’ may be a little obscure (particularly the giant chickens) but folklore transcends cultural boundaries. The tales that Sarnet tells focus on the needs and concerns of people at the very bottom of the social scale, as such they have a coarser texture but more immediacy than some other cinematic folk tales like Matteo Garrone’s ‘Tale of Tales’ (2016). Like ‘The Company of Wolves’ (Neil Jordan, 1984) ‘November’ embraces folktale’s satisfying narrative cadences whilst subverting some of its more conservative conventions: Liina may be able to transform into a wolf, but instead of running with the pack she remains a solitary, introverted presence. As in so many folktales simple folk use their wits to wriggle their way out of some seemingly hopeless situations; the villagers’ response to imminent plague is sobering but also hilarious, like the po-faced ‘duck and cover’ propaganda of the Cold War. Sarnet refuses to romanticise poverty and is forthright in his description of the petty cruelties of village life, but he finds enough gallows humour amidst the hardship to prevent ‘November’ becoming too sombre.

One of the last areas of Europe to be Christianised, conversion was forced upon the pagan population of what is now Estonia by crusaders from Germany, Sweden and Denmark in the 13^th Century.  For the serfs of ‘November’ Christianity has become just another form of sympathetic magic. The village women bully the local priest and steal communion wafers which they forge into magic bullets for hunting. Some strike deals with the devil, trading their souls to create a kratt which will fetch and carry for them (or steal a neighbour’s livestock). They are wonderfully brought to life by Estonian designer Jaanus Orgusaar who invests each with its own personality. These bizarre constructs, cobbled together from bones, kettles and brooms are the lowliest creatures in the social order, used and abused by their peasant masters. Like the serfs, set to uprooting tree stumps with their bare hands, a kratt can be kept busy performing impossible tasks to prevent it becoming fractious. ‘November’ mordantly illustrates one of the basic truths of political and economic oppression; even for those at the very bottom of the social scale there is always someone lower down the ladder to kick.

Star-crossed lovers are a staple of folklore but the plight of Hans and Liina gives ‘November’ a potent emotional charge. Giving and receiving love can offer a rare chance to find comfort in a hostile world; unfortunately romance proves as elusive as any other form of sustenance in an environment where everything must be commoditized: Liina’s father has contracted to marry her off to a boorish pig farmer and Hans’ love for the Baroness can never bridge the social gulf that separates them. Both Liina and Hans seek a supernatural solution for unrequited passion but neither village wise man Sander (Heino Kalm) nor wise woman Minna (Klara Eihgorn) can create love where none exists. Engaging performances from actors Rea Lest and Jörgen Liik ensure that ‘November’ is more than a dusty study of folklore or a hollow exercise in visual style. Liina learns that a gift refused still enriches the giver and that unreciprocated love is better than no love at all. In an uncompromising society where every man and woman must fend for themselves and where the devil literally takes the hindmost, Liina refuses to win Hans’ love at the cost of another life; her willingness to sacrifice her own comfort for the good of another proves that selfless love can ennoble even the lowliest existence. Hans barters away his soul for a kratt made of snow but becomes entranced by the tales that it tells, stories that help him to understand that pain is an unavoidable part of both love and life.

For Kivirähk and Sarnet, history and folktale are interchangeable. The notion of objective history is fragile at best; as soon as we place dates and personalities into a narrative, subjectivity intervenes. Even the most conscientious historian may unwittingly soften uncomfortable truths or impose structure where none exists. Every nation has its own stories and the line between patriotic history and nationalistic propaganda can be very thin; the current Russian regime’s version of history is very different to the narrative that prevails in territories (like Estonia) that were once part of the Soviet Union. For Estonians, many of whom fled their homeland to live in a wide diaspora, national identity remains contentious: Germany, Denmark and Sweden have all laid claim to these lands at one time or another. When Estonia was annexed by the Soviets after the second world war, its native culture was suppressed and its population subject to enforced emigration and purges. Estonian finally won independence in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc. Estonian nationalism first asserted itself around the time that ‘November’ is set, in the early-to-mid nineteenth century.  We see it expressed by the insubordinate staff of the German Baron’s household, particularly Ints (Taavi Eelmaa), the suave but truculent major domo. ‘November’ demonstrates how Estonia constructed its sense of national identity in defiance of the more powerful and aggressive states like Germany and Russia that have coveted its natural resources and subjugated its indigenous population as cheap (or free) labour.

Kivirähk celebrates his cultural heritage but never succumbs to clichés of patriotic sentimentality. Folklore and nationalism have a close but troubled relationship: The Grimm Brothers’ collection of folk tales was, in part, an attempt to rekindle German nationalism in the face of French occupation. There is an element of cultural recovery in ‘November’, but it looks back at the past with honest, self-deprecating humour rather than nationalistic nostalgia. Having survived a long history of invasion and subjugation Estonians strove to build an affluent and progressive society but since the Russian invasion of the Ukraine in 2022, they once more have good cause to be anxious about the intentions of their powerful, aggressive neighbour. Sensibly, the makers of ‘November’ adopt a pragmatic view of national identity: although almost a quarter of Estonians are descended from Russian immigrants very few would consider returning to Russia. The Second World War and Soviet annexation have left a bitter legacy, but eventually disparate communities come together. Despite it’s sometimes melancholic tone ‘November’ remains a hopeful film: Hans and Liina may never be able to live happily ever after, but they achieve a kind of union and experience a single night of transcendent joy. Stories can divide us, but common themes in folklore also reveal how much we have in common. This poetic, moving film reminds us that, in the words of Philip Larkin “what will survive of us is love” and that in a harsh world where nothing is certain we should embrace those fleeting, magical moments that transform drab existence into something sublime.

Quote:

“Why spare the likes of us? We steal from each other but bury our haul or gobble it down. We should be happy to be freed from our shame.”                     Sander (Heino Kalm)

Connections:

Film

‘The Seventh Seal’ directed by Ingmar Bergman (1957)

‘The Company of Wolves’ directed by Neil Jordan (1984)

‘Stille Nacht 3: Tales from the Vienna Woods’ directed by the Brothers Quay (1992)

‘Stille Nacht 5: Can’t Go Wrong Without You’ directed by the Brothers Quay (1993)

‘Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream That People Call Human Life’’ directed by the Brothers Quay (1995)

‘The Village’ directed by M Night Shyamalan (2004)

‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ directed by Guillermo Del Toro (2006)

‘Sauna’ directed by Antti-Jussi Annila (2008)

‘Tale of Tales’ directed by Matteo Garrone (2015)

‘Errementari: The Blacksmith and the Devil’ directed by Paul Urkijo (2017)

Reading

Catherine Merridale, Night of Stone: Death and Memory in Twentieth Century Russia, Granta, 2000, ISBN 9781862073746

James Meek, The People’s Act of Love, Canongate Books, 2005, ISBN 9781841956541

Jonathan Littell, The Kindly Ones, Chatto and Windus, 2009, ISBN 9780701181659

Andrus Kivirähk, Rehepapp Ehk November, Varrak, 2000, ISBN 9789985304228, (available only in Estonian and French translations)

Andrus Kivirähk, Mees, kes teadis ussisõnu, translated as ‘The Man Who Spoke Snakish’, Grove Press, 2007, ISBN 9780802124128

Deep in the Forest: 100 Estonian Fairy Tales about the Forest and its People, Varrak, 2018, ISBN 9789985343654

Baltic Belles: The Dedalus Book of Estonian Women’s Literature, edited by Elle-Mari Talivee, Dedalus, 2019, ISBN 9781910213780

Music

Arvo Pärt, Tabula Rasa (1984), ECM Records, ECM 1275

Tom Waits, The Black Rider (1992), Island Records, CID 8021518559-2