"November"by Rainer Sarnet - what a GREAT movie from Estonia !!! - movie review

"November" is not a movie you know. It is like a distorted face, carved in a tree bark. The awkward feeling comes in the early moments of the movie, which begins with a mythological creature called Krat that pulls a cow in the air with a chain. Then I said: "Wow, what a start!!!" Simultaneously familiar and terrifyingly new. So, my whole sense of this film goes through the dichotomy of the familiar and the unknown, which amalgam wrap around each other. The face on the tree bark is not just a face. It is a connection of two worlds. Imagine now that the face is not just a slit, but moves, it's not static. Such persons could only exist in dreams. And so with "November", his vision seems to have come from a dreamlike dream, dreamed by a robot, dreamed by a god, or dreamed by a falling snowflake. Apparently totally impossible. "November" is a 2017 film by Estonian director Rainer Sarnett. It is based on a novel by Andrus Chiravac, which was released in 2000. The trailer assured us all, waiting for this movie, that this would be a grim folk tale, terrifying, harsh and beautiful.

The story of Leina (Ria Lest), a young rural girl who is also a werewolf, has been traced. Her father made a deal with an old, nasty and simple peasant for her to marry her. Lena is in love with young Hans (Jörgen Leek), who is captured by the charm of another: the sick German baroness (Yate Louuna Hermanis). The baroness also seems to be a werewolf, for at full moon wrecks unconsciously on the roof of the mansion that dwells with her father. Meanwhile, the world of our three heroes is inhabited by other poor, ragged and thieving villagers, some late at night going to the woods to conduct audiences with the Devil. "November" is a movie with characters, theme, development and conflicts, as is almost every movie ever made in this world. Its difference does not come from a scattered chaos of action, lack of structure, internal logic, and storyline. On the contrary, it is a movie in which the themes can be easily extracted, in which each character has some motivation and moves forward to realizing it. In this line of thought, "November" is a very comprehensible film. With a mythological structure, perhaps, with strange creatures doing extraordinary things, but still understandable. (I always feel the need to give such explanations, because there are still people who, when mentioning the phrase "European Cinema", they approach with distrust.

The film shows a harsh winter reality, in which the peasants survive by stealing everything they find. There is food, gold is stealing, robes are stolen, souls are stealing. When survival is called into question, theft inevitably goes under the care of lies. In a wonderful scene, the peasants gather in horror, convinced that the plague comes to kill them. They are lying on the ground, as people always expect death to come from heaven, put their underwear on their heads, shoe their shoes on their hands, and pause. There comes a goat, walks between them and passes them calmly. They are relieved that once again they have succeeded in deceiving their superiors with their cunning. Whether in this scene the film criticizes ignorance and superstition or rather is a metaphorical picture of human egocentrism that it can cope with any evil is a matter of interpretation. I think we can say it is neither of the two. We see some scandalous people, who have fled from domesticity, who naively and somewhat degradingly enjoy their victory over supreme power. And maybe they really beat it, maybe a long time ago, each one of them sold their soul to the Devil.

The devil is one of the most interesting characters in the movie, and I dare say that I'm not sure I have seen him depicted elsewhere in a similar way. He is hiding in the forest and shows up only at night when someone on the path goes into the dark to look for him. The devil is a soul merchant. With a mouth of blood and blueberry. As someone approached him, the face of the man became gray, dark, as if sprinkled with grated graphite. The vision of "November" is just brilliant at these moments (the operator Mart Thaniel is awarded the Tribea Festival Award), and in fact at all times. The flickering of the white strips of sun through the vertical black lines of the trees, the contrasting race between light and dark, depicted by the feverish dynamics of the camera, can capture the viewer's attention without anything dramatic to happen. The vision of the film is both rich and simple. And if you find any meaning in the first sentence, then I've managed to surprise you with the way this movie looks. My inability to talk more about "November" buzzes me in the ribs. You do not need to know anything else about it. If you love Bergman movies, watch this movie too. If you love the 8th episode of season's third of "Twin Peaks," watch it. If you love all things weird, watch it. If you want to see the most tragic snowman in the history of cinema, watch "November". It will terrify you, surprise you and eventually leave you with need for more. Like good movies do.

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