Culturally,
the Baltic States are considered more closely akin to Scandinavia than the
Slavic countries, but the gothic goings on in this 19th Century
Estonian village are downright Carpathian. Even the Devil himself has a role to
play in Rainer Sarnet’s November (trailer here), which screens
during the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival.
Fundamentally,
November is a story of mismatched and
thwarted love. Pretty peasant girl Liina has fallen for Hans, the dashing Brom
Bones of the village, but he has hopelessly and futilely fallen for the
sleepwalking ward of the local lord. Much to her horror, Liina has been
promised to a much older rustic by her severe grandfather. Liina’s mother does
not approve of the match, but she remains estranged from her crotchety father,
even though she is now a ghost.
Despite
their Medieval-style Orthodox faith, the villagers are in constant commerce
with the sulfuric one. To maintain their subsistence living, they build “kratts,”
eerie looking robotic creatures constructed out of farm implements, but to
animate them, they must purchase a soul from the Devil, at the cost of their
own. They will also have to contend with the shape-shifting plague, which comes
to town in the guise of a beautiful woman, but fittingly assumes the form of a
goat.
November is the sort of
film that is greater in the sum of its parts than as a whole. There are some
wonderfully macabre and inventive scenes distributed throughout the film, but
the parallel stories of Liina and Hans’ unrequited love really start to drag. Still,
the kratt effects are wonderfully weird and eccentric, while Mart Taniel’s
black-and-white cinematography is absolutely arresting.
Pacing
might be an issue for Sarnet, but he creates a consistently otherworldly tone.
It is an unsettling vibe, not entirely dissimilar from Robert Eggers’ The Witch and Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s Mother Joan of the Angels. November is stuffed with creepiness, including
hints there might be something lycanthropic going on with Liina. Yet, it is a
cold, impersonal film that always keeps viewers at arm’s length.
