Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: The White Reindeer

In this classic episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe discuss the 1952 Finnish folk horror film "The White Reindeer," starring Mirjami Kuosmanen. (originally published 7/11/2025)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, you welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind This is
Rob Lamb. Today we are reairing an episode that came
out seven eleven, twenty twenty five. It is The White
Reindeer in nineteen fifty two finish folk horror film, and
it is it's an interesting one. So this is a
way of yours, particularly if it's a little hot outside.
This is a nice bit of winter escapism. Let's jump

(00:27):
right in.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
And this is Joe McCormick. And today on Weird House
Cinema we're going to be talking about the nineteen fifty
two Finish folk horror film The White Reindeer, starring Miriami
Quosmanan and directed by Eric Blomberg. If I may say,
I think this is the finest where ungulate movie I

(01:04):
have ever seen.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
It may be the finest where ungulate movie I can envision,
because the concept to many of you, I imagine where
wolf fans uh. To the last of you, I'm assuming
you might struggle to get excited for a where Reindeer
picture and yet this one is really good. It's it's classy,
it's it's basically art house and has some you know,

(01:29):
almost kind of documentary vibes to it at times. It's
very well done and ultimately makes you buy in completely
to this concept that I have to I have to
admit that on the surface to many of us might
seem a little silly.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
Oh by the end, I was terrified of reindeers. That
is that a correct plural would not be reindeers. It's
still be reindeer. That's plural, just to say the dear Yeah, okay,
but yeah. So this movie is set in the culture
of pre Christian Lapland today the northernmost region of Finland,

(02:04):
and The White Reindeer tells a story of love and loneliness,
of women's dependence and independence in culture, of longing and desire,
of witchcraft, of transformation, and of murder. It's got all
kinds of stuff going on. So the basic premise of
the story is that Pirita, a woman of the north

(02:26):
married to a hard working reindeer herder in Lapland, finds
herself unhappy with life, and she seeks the help of
a wizard who prescribes for her a ritual that will
make her irresistible to men. But unfortunately, this magic spell
has a toxic interaction with the pre existing condition of

(02:46):
her being a genetic witch since birth, and instead of
merely becoming the bell of the Ball, Pirita is transformed
into a kind of seductive, somnambulist and reindeer version of
a werewolf, assuming fur and antlers by the light of
the moon and luring unsuspecting herdsmen to their deaths Now, Rob,

(03:09):
there's one little random claim I read on the internet
that made a lot more sense of the story to
me after I read it. I don't know this is true,
but it seems likely given the story here. It's not
explained in the story itself, but apparently the Sammi people,
whose culture is depicted in this story. Among the Sammi people,

(03:30):
it was a common folk belief that there was something
special about a white or albino reindeer, and if you
could catch a wild white reindeer, it would bring you
great fortune.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yeah, that does help flash things out a little bit.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
So the white reindeer has a kind of interesting release history.
I was reading a bit about it in a book
called one hundred European horror Films edited by Stephen J. Schneider,
and apparently it's nineteen fifty two debut in the Finnish
capital of Helsinki happened during the summer Olympics in Helsinki,

(04:06):
which resulted in what the author calls near vacant screenings.
Nobody was gone to see it, but so not a
good way to start. But it caught on domestically after
this in a second run later that summer or maybe
in the fall, and it started getting good press and
would eventually become something of an international hit, receiving a

(04:28):
number of awards, including at the con Film Festival. We'll
get into more on that later, but it's kind of
interesting that this was a sort of sensation at the time,
and I think for most of my life I'd never
even heard of it. I never became aware of it
until just recently.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
I was not aware of it until you texted me
over the weekend and said, I have chosen for this
week it's the White Reindeer. And at the time I
was like, of course, you know. One percent. I'm like,
all right, let's do that, Let's do the White Reindeer.
But I was also thinking this is an interesting summer choice.
But of course we just did a core stuff to
Blowy Night episode on skiing, so it's not out out

(05:06):
of keeping with us to do something that seems seasonally opposite.
But oh, ice skating, Yeah, ice skating, Sorry, not skiing.
We haven't done skiing yet, but we should skiing.

Speaker 3 (05:16):
There's a lot of skiing in the movie.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
Seeing But now that you mentioned that this originally came
out in the summer, it is fitting that we're talking
about it in the summer.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
I mean, I happen to personally love counter seasonal programming,
yet you know that's just me. Now, I think it
could be interesting to compare this film to other Rare
Beast movies we've covered on the show, But maybe we
should come back to that later or just as it
occurs to us throughout. One thing I do think we
should talk about briefly at the top is this movie's

(05:47):
visual stylistic virtue. As many reviewers mentioned this as a
real highlight of the film, the bold, stark way that
it looks. It was shot on location in real snowy
landscapes of northern Finland in Lapland, and so you get
these the fells, you know, these kind of like like
low sloping or rounded mountaintops or hilltops, many of which

(06:11):
are bear some of which have just kind of, I
don't know, sad looking like snow covered tree limbs poking out.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
Like every portion of the tree, trees iced over in
ways that those of us in more southern climates scarcely
can imagine. Like it looks almost Sussian, you know, the
way these trees are iced over.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
Yeah, true Arctic strangeness.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
Yeah, Jack Frost hit this landscape hard.

Speaker 3 (06:37):
But also like herds of reindeer stretching to the horizon
in some shots, those are quite striking. And then these
little and then the way that the movie deals with
both absolutely empty expanses and then these little closed boxes
in the homes. You know that. So you'll go out
in this field and it's just like seeing far to

(06:59):
the horizon and there's nothing there but a few like
you know, leafless shrubs or this, you know, this train
of animals just stretching over the horizon and there's like
nothing else to see. But then you arrive at the
Wizard Shack and you go inside and it looks like
it's about like eight feet by eight feet. Inside it's
like tiny but crammed with evil magic.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, now that you mentioned it that way, it reminds
me of some past discussions we had on the on
the Core and stuff to blow your mind episodes about
the art of Tibet and like interior spaces in Tibet,
interior sacred spaces versus the exterior world where you have
like huge sky and sweeping vistas. And we have a
similar vibe going on here, you know, with these these

(07:40):
little enclosed off in you know, very dark, cozy spaces,
and then outside it's just like a white wasteland, but
in the most beautiful sense.

Speaker 3 (07:50):
Yeah, these things filmed in a way that is both
frightening and beautiful.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
If we haven't mentioned it already, this is a black
and white film, which, especially in these shots of the
of the landscape, it seemed very fitting. You know, everything
is very very white, and the shadows have this depth
to them, and then the indoor scenes, especially at night,
also feel it feels appropriate. I will say there are

(08:14):
a few scenes of just sort of normal everyday life
or celebration within the community that I kind of wished
we could have seen in color because I feel like
those were Yeah, I just kind of wanted to see
the colors there, but on the whole, yeah, the black
and white, and this is absolutely beautiful.

Speaker 3 (08:31):
I just realized there's really no way around it. But
we're gonna say the words reindeer and snow so many
times in this episode. I was just like going through
my notes trying to think of synonyms, so I wasn't
repeating myself so much. But in a way it's fitting
because this movie is just it's just plowing straight into
your brain with reindeer and snow. There's so much of both.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
Most of the location is snow, and there are far
more reindeer in the picture than human beings. It's it's
just a fact. There's just so many reindeer on the
screen at different points. But in a way that is again,
it feels very when you see people interacting with the reindeer.
When you see it feels almost like a documentary, like
a snapshot of life. There's not a sense of like,

(09:16):
all right, let's get the reindeer wrangler out there so
it can get this shot like this, This film feels
very real.

Speaker 3 (09:23):
I believe the director of it had made documentaries and
maybe even on this subject right correct.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
His first short picture as well. We'll discuss here in
a minute, was about the Lapland reindeer herders, So it's yeah,
it's very fitting. I should also point out that this
film is in many spaces very light on dialogue. It
has almost a silent film sensibility.

Speaker 3 (09:47):
That's notable in multiple ways. It does contribute to the
mood of the film, because there are long silent stretches
where there's just music, no talking in between the dialogue scenes,
and that I think that does contribute to the kind
of lonely, eerie feeling that they're attempting to conjure, especially
when we're just alone with Perita. Yeah. But in addition

(10:08):
to that the lack of dialogue, it shows a real
what seems to me to be a conscious choice of
narrative restraint that keeps many things about characters, motivations and
thoughts a mystery very different than I think most other
movies at this time would have done.

Speaker 1 (10:26):
That.

Speaker 3 (10:26):
I feel like if this same kind of subject had
been approached by an American filmmaker at this time, there
would have been a lot more voiceover explaining the interior
thoughts of characters of perioda and aslock. But we don't
get that so very often we're just sort of left
wondering what they're thinking about what's going on.

Speaker 1 (10:47):
Yeah, it has a very European art house sensibility in
that respect. And yeah, and there will be no transformation
scenes in this in the way that you get them
in a certainly American and many your pen examples of
ladder monster movies and so specifically wear Wolf movies. But
then again, you don't need a transformation scene for a

(11:07):
great shape shifter.

Speaker 3 (11:09):
Movie, that's right, I mean, And in fact, this movie
it doesn't really have a lot in the way of
special effects, but it doesn't really need them because the
way it handles its subject matter is just very natural
and graceful.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
Like.

Speaker 3 (11:24):
So, there's a character who transforms into a reindeer in
these in these murder scenes, and you'll see her just
sort of leap out of frame, and in the next frame,
the reindeer leaps into frame. It's a very simple way
to depict this kind of transformation without showing it in frame,
and it works just fine.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
Yeah, this reminds me, I want to mention really quickly.
When I was looking up the reviews on letterbox for
this film, one of the people I followed, John from
Video Drum here in Atlanta made the comment, somehow this
is one of those low budget or enormous budget watching
experiences which I can totally I can totally feel, because again,

(12:03):
I think a lot of it has to do with
that naturalistic vibe, this kind of like documentary feel to it.
At times, you can feel like, well, all they did
was turn on the camera and this is just this
is just what it is there, this is life. But
then again, when you start thinking about, like you know,
any documentary about filmmaking you've seen, like, no, maybe this
was absolutely an enormously expensive picture. It's just hard to tell,

(12:24):
especially you know, being so far from this environment.

Speaker 3 (12:28):
And from this time, I agree that it feels that way.
Though I guess we should just flag that I don't
necessarily want to vouch for this film's cultural authenticity and
how it depicts the Sami culture and all that, because
I don't really know how well it captures that. I
didn't find sources addressing this. It clearly is trying. It
seems to me to be trying to capture a kind

(12:49):
of cultural authenticity, but I don't know how well in
reality it actually did that.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
Right, we can point to other examples from the nineteen
fifties and different cinema traditions where there's there's not a
lot of finesse shown in that sort of cultural depictions.
So yeah, we would. I think it's reasonable for us
to have a healthy amount of skepticism, all right. You know,

(13:18):
I don't know if this had a trailer, or if
whatever kind of trailer it originally had in Finland, if
it exists online anywhere, we may air just a little
bit of what I think is a modern trailer for
it that Eureka Entertainment put out. Eureka Entertainment is responsible
for what I believe is the main Blu Ray option

(13:39):
for this picture. I did not watch it on this
Blu Ray. I streamed it. It's widely available for streaming
wherever you get your streaming pictures. But it looks like
the Blu Ray is a really nice package with a
number of extras.

Speaker 4 (14:00):
Oh tears in Sinu two level and many you are more.

Speaker 5 (14:13):
Zero two level sil say the lench and line and
yellow and an old Toyo car too, lever star on
the Malayah.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
You beca a boy?

Speaker 1 (14:57):
All right, Well, let's let's get into the cast and
crew here a little bit, and I always want to
apologize for any pronunciation errors with names and such. We
haven't done really any finish films before. We've done some
Russo finish co productions.

Speaker 3 (15:16):
Yeah, but this Rose is a Russo finished thing, right, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
Yeah, but this is I think this is our first
like purely finish film from the golden age of Finnish cinema.
I'm to understand, and I want to note I'm going
to refer several times to the Juicy Awards, JUSSI. There
may be more USY Awards. They're essentially like Finnish Academy Awards,
and I think maybe there's a little Emmy energy in there,

(15:42):
because I think they also recognized television projects or at
least came to at some point. They've been held since
nineteen forty four, and so I'm going to refer back
to them several different times here. Okay, So the key individuals,
as we've already noted, are going to be Eric Blomberg,
who is it did as the director, one of the writers,

(16:02):
certainly the cinematographer and also the editor, as well as
his wife mir Jammi Kuzmanin, and she is our star.
She is also credited as one of the writers. But
I was reading about her specifically on a website called
Nordic Women in Film dot com and in this this

(16:24):
write up they mentioned just how closely these two work
together on their projects. I think the quote is from
one of them, is that when it came to projects
they worked on, you would have to use a pair
of tweezers to separate what each one did. So this
division of labor here we get is in many ways
maybe just a reflection of what their backgrounds were. Her

(16:46):
background wasn't acting. His background was in cinematography and was
behind the camera, and therefore they're credited as such. And
it's also been pointed out that there were very few
female directors in Finnish cinema at the time, so maybe
that was another reason that her name wasn't at the top.
But like they work so closely together, just keep that

(17:06):
in mind as we're talking about these divisions, because it
seems like this whole project was a collaboration.

Speaker 3 (17:11):
Right, so it should be kind of thought of as
that them as co filmmakers.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
Yes, yeah, and they were very open yeah about this.
So let's start with Eric. Though he lived nineteen thirteen
through nineteen ninety six finish cinematographer, producer, screenwriter and director.
Not to be confused with a Swedish poet of the
same name. This Blomberg started off as a cinematographer with
credits going back to nineteen thirty six, and he was

(17:36):
a producer from nineteen thirty eight onward. His first directorial
credit was a nineteen forty seven documentary short titled with
the Reindeer, about the reindeer of Lapland.

Speaker 3 (17:46):
Yeah, as we alluded to earlier, that is not surprising
if you've seen the film that he had shot documentary
footage about reindeer herding or about reindeer in general. There
is a I don't even know how to identify what
the the points leading to this impression are, but there's
just a feeling of familiarity with the subject, if that
makes any sense.

Speaker 1 (18:07):
Absolutely, yeah, and it was well received. This documentary short
won a Ucy Award. I'm gonna go ahead just say
ucy instead of juicy, just because it sounds better to me.
But that may also be incorrect, Okay. He followed this
short up with a handful of additional shorts before tackling
this his first feature length film, again a collaboration with
his wife. She co wrote it, and again that you'd

(18:32):
have to use a tweezer to separate what they were
each working on in their own words. As you pointed out,
nobody seemed to go to see it at first because
they released it during the summer Olympics, but then it
began to pick up steam domestically and then ultimately was
very well received internationally. Not only did it earn them
a uc for cinematography, it was nominated for the Grand

(18:54):
Prize of the cons Film Festival in fifty three and
it won in its fairy tail film categor which excited
me and I had to research this. I'm like, what
else won? What else was nominated? I don't think this
category existed previously or afterwards, so I'm not sure what
the story is here. If they invented a category to

(19:15):
honor this film, which if that's the case, great, this
film totally earned it, or if they were like, yes,
fairy tale films, they need their own category, and then
it just they decided not to keep doing it. I'm
not sure.

Speaker 3 (19:27):
I'm getting out of the pitchforks. Bring it back, Bring
it back to the con judges, we need a fairy
tale film category, do it?

Speaker 1 (19:34):
Yeah, and maybe you'd encourage even more fairy tale films.
I don't think we have enough of them. So Blomberg
followed this up with a handful of feature link films,
some more short works, and finally a couple of TV
movies in sixty six and sixty eight. Of these, his
nineteen fifty five film Killouse also won a UCY for cinematography.
But The White Reindeer I believe, remains his most well

(19:55):
known film, certainly internationally, and continues to resonate not only
as an example of cinema during from the golden era
of Finnish cinema, but also as a rich entry in
Global full car.

Speaker 3 (20:06):
I've read that Blomberg did not do a lot else
in this sort of magical category.

Speaker 1 (20:12):
Right, that's I'm to understand that as well. Looking at
his other pictures, I don't think anything else could qualify
as you know, specula as having a speculative elopment.

Speaker 3 (20:22):
Okay, but that was Eric Blomberg. Let's talk Miriami Kosmanan Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
So. Kospannen lived nineteen fifteen through nineteen sixty three. She
plays our witch reindeer, Finnish actress, writer and longtime wife
of Eric Blomberg. I was reading her this profile of
her in her work on Nordic women in film. They
point out that she was like a real wild child
as a kid, like she played played sports with the boys,

(20:47):
she loved swimming and fishing. There's some story about her
putting out a fire in their house. So yeah, she
seemed to be a real spirited individual. And she was
active from thirty seven through fifty six, and they're a
good I think dozen collaborations between her and her husband.
She is often credited as a writer and sometimes she

(21:08):
is an actress. But this film, in particular, I'm to understand,
was a case where it was at least partially inspired
by a dream she had of a woman turning into
a reindeer. And I think it's also, you know, as
we'll discuss, based on some existing bits of folklore and
Bret and Sagas and so forth, but also there's a
dream element something that you know, that emerges personally from her.

(21:32):
There's also a quote in that article about how like
they had a unified vision for this picture and that
they each could see every scene before they shot it.
So she's a really beautiful thought, I.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
Think, especially for a film that has deadly premonitions within it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
Yeah, yeah that they Yeah, they saw the vision together.
Other notable films of hers include nineteen thirty eight's The
Song of the Scarlet Flower, which, like much her filmography,
was a romance drama. Again, I don't think there are
any other films in her filmography that you could think
of as being horror, fantasy, or certainly sci fi. I

(22:10):
think The White Reindeer stands alone. She won a uc
for Best Leading Actress for her role in The White Reindeer.
And Yeah, she's amazing in this. It's a captivating performance.
You know, she's often silently channeling these intense feelings of loneliness,
of love and hope and eventually other worldly power.

Speaker 3 (22:31):
She really carries the film. I mean, it is her
burden to carry, and she takes it up that snowy hill.
We spend huge amounts of the movie just alone with her,
with nobody else, and even in scenes where she's with
other people, often it's just sort of the audience in
her and the other people are kind of peripheral. Yeah,

(22:52):
and so we have and it's a really interesting way
to render a protagonist in this way because we our
main relationship is with her, and we spend all this
time with her. But also she remains so mysterious through
the entire film, and we even at the end of
the story, I think there are many questions we can

(23:13):
still have about her that aren't really answered directly.

Speaker 1 (23:16):
Yeah, because you know, ultimately she gets some great Dracula
moments and in a sense it's going to follow some
the trajectory you might expect from a werewolf picture. But
yet at the end there's not this feeling of Welp,
she was a monster and thank goodness we killed her.
It feels a lot, a lot sadder than that. Yeah,

(23:36):
it's very it's tragic. Yeah, it's more. If I'm going
to compare it to just an easily referred to werewolf picture,
reminds me maybe a little bit of American Werewolf in London,
like that kind of vibe where it's it's yeah, the
monster's dad, but we don't feel great about it.

Speaker 3 (23:51):
I would say, yes, but it's even more tragic than that,
because of course, you know, she has to be killed
by the man she loves, uh, and he doesn't even
know it's her. So it's just tragedy all around. And
then there's an even more kind of bleak layer, which
is that the guy an American werewolf in London. He's
just had bad luck, wrong place, wrong time. He was
out on the moor and he got scratched. He got

(24:11):
bitten by a werewolf. That's no good. She It seems
that our main character here is doomed from ages past.
She was like doomed before her birth to this life
of unnatural witchcraft. And it's like there is something that
the other characters recognize about her that is evil, but

(24:32):
it's almost like it's an evil that is not of
her choosing.

Speaker 1 (24:35):
Yeah, yeah, it's an Yeah, it's fascinating. We'll have more
to say about this character and this performance as we proceed,
but let's move on to Aslek. This is Parita's young
reindeer herger husband, played by Finnish actor and TV director
Kalervo Neicilla, who lived nineteen thirteen through nineteen ninety seven.

(24:57):
I say young reindeer herder husband. The actor was I
believe like forty here, and you know, kind of looks
like a forty year old guy. But I have to
say he has a very sympathetic face. It's a good performance.
And while you could argue, well, he looks maybe a
little older than he should be, and this is not
unique to this film. We see this in all sorts

(25:19):
of pictures, just in every decade. But I ultimately kind
of liked the fact that he looked a little older. Yeah,
and she does two in certain scenes, because I kind
of got this perhaps accidental vibe of them both being
slightly older members of the community who just hadn't found
love yet until now for various reasons.

Speaker 3 (25:37):
Oh, that's interesting. I didn't really think of it that way.
I guess I interpreted. I mean, he does look older
than I think he's supposed to be. Just based on
the narrative, I would have guessed these characters are both
supposed to be like twenty or something. Yeah, and they're
actually both I guess in their you know, thirties or forty.
But you could buy it, I think, especially with Aslac,

(25:58):
because he's like he's a reindeer her. I mean, he's
out there in the weather, like he's getting you know,
the snow's beaten on him every day. You can imagine, Yeah,
you'd imagine that he would look distinguished and mature even
at a younger age. And he does. And so he
has a kind of rugged handsomeness but also kind of

(26:19):
a baby face at the same time.

Speaker 1 (26:21):
Yeah yeah, yeah. Like I say, he has a very
sympathetic face. That works well here. Now, someone who does
not have a sympathetic face is the character Messena. I'm
probably not saying that correctly. This is a like a
forester who shows up the ranger.

Speaker 5 (26:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
Yeah, he has a real threatening air to him. I
was looking at him. He's an interesting character. Played by
Aki Lindman, who lived nineteen twenty eight through two thousand
and nine. He was a professional Finnish football player turned
actor and eventually writer and director. He started acting I
Believe in nineteen forty nine, started directing in sixty one,
and was active behind the camp until two thousand and

(27:00):
seven and in front of it till two thousand and three.
He won a Ussy for acting in fifty six for
The Unknown Soldier. He won one for directing in nineteen
eighty eight, and then he received a Lifetime Achievement Award
in two thousand and eight. His various credits include nineteen
fifty nine's Moonwolf, which is a rocket movie, a werewolf movie,
nineteen seventy seven's Telephone, nineteen eighty one's Reds that's directed

(27:25):
by and starring Warren Beatty. I haven't seen Reds, but
that one is filmed on location in Finland, so you
had some Finnish actors appearing in some smaller supporting roles.
And then he's also in a nineteen eighty eight film
called The Moon God.

Speaker 3 (27:38):
Wait, he was in Moonwolf and Moon God. Yeah, unrelated films.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
Though unrelated decades apart, different I can't remember. I think
The Moon God might have a speculative element to it,
but it's not a rocket movie. Moon Wolf is a
nineteen fifties rocket movie.

Speaker 3 (27:53):
Does seem like a coincidence. How many movies are like
Moon now? And how many would there be?

Speaker 1 (27:59):
Lots? Yeah, okay or something moon?

Speaker 3 (28:01):
There are lots of like yeah, death moon, that's right,
We've covered some on the show. Yeah. I feel like
modifier moon is more common than moon noun.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
Probably so in the long run, all right. We also
we mentioned that there's a wizard. May we'll get into this.
Maybe he's more of a shaman, but in the subtitles
he does call himself a wizard. This is the character Salkunila,
played by r Vo Alesma, who lived nineteen oh one

(28:31):
through nineteen seventy three, Finnish actor who seems to have
worked a lot in supporting roles. And he's really great
in this, playing this kind of kind of drunken wizard
or shaman that lives in a hut. I would say,
out at the edge of the town. But there's not
really a town so much, but he's kind of out

(28:51):
on the outskirts of the outskirts here.

Speaker 3 (28:53):
The scene in his hut is really interesting. I'm excited
to talk about that later, especially for the way like
the tables get turned. Like in his scene, Parita arrives
and it's like he's the scary one, and she's kind
of supplicant and she's like, oh, what's it going to
be like here, you know, meeting the shaman. But then
by the end of the scene the tables are completely

(29:14):
turned and like she is scary and he is scared
of her.

Speaker 1 (29:17):
Yeah. And finally, the composer for this was Einar England
who lived nineteen sixteen through nineteen ninety nine. A finished composer,
he won a NUSI Award in fifty two for this score,
which I think I'm on the whole feels very much
of its time, but I think it gets nicely dramatic
as the film progresses.

Speaker 3 (29:38):
Oh, I think the music's wonderful. I think it really
underscores the drama very well. There's these certain themes that
recur when, like when Pirita is losing her mind or
when she's sort of going to another place, we get
this nice uneasy these chords come up. Yeah, and there's
some dissonance and there's sort of a theme of the
stone God. When we get to that, really good, I.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
Think that's when it its best. There's some early parts
where it's there are a lot of horns and it
maybe feels a little fashion, you know, from a bag. Yeah,
But when it gets into the darker and more dramatic parts,
the composer totally brings it here. And I should also
add that the film also makes great use, particularly in
one segment early on, of what I take to be

(30:23):
authentic folk songs, which adds nice flavor.

Speaker 3 (30:34):
All right, are you ready to talk about the plot.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
Let's do it.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
So.

Speaker 3 (30:38):
We open on a shot of a winter landscape covered
in snow, striped with lines of bear trees and shrubs
stretching to the horizon, and then at the horizon we
see these fairly low, gently sloping mountains in the distance,
and in the foreground we see a pair of forked
reindeer antlers belonging to an animal whose head is below

(30:59):
the frame. And then standing next to the reindeer, there's
a person facing away, dressed in furs, and there's music.
The music is just a woman's voice singing an eerie,
high pitched melody that sounds cold. You know what I mean,
Like this music, like it makes you want a blanket.

Speaker 1 (31:18):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (31:19):
As we pan away from the reindeer and the person
over the landscape, a title comes in to tell us
that this is a story from Lapland, and we get
the title telling calling it the White Reindeer, Valcoyne and Peura.
After the credits, a new song begins, and this one
sounds like a folk song, also sung by a single

(31:39):
woman's voice, and the lyrics are little girl child of Lapland,
born in a snowdrift. And then here we see there's
like a shot of the sky and it's very strange
and beautiful. There are these gray clouds and there's like
a glare of the sun piercing through the cloud. Yeah,

(32:02):
and the song goes on saying grew to girlhood straw
stuffed shoes like a reindeer dough. And then we see
wind blowing over the top of a deep snowfield with
these black tree limbs barely peeking out of the drifts.
And this is something that the director they will the
directors will like to show you again and again is

(32:23):
shots of a snowy field with wind blowing and the
blowing snow like these sort of these sheets of snow
being picked up off the top of the field and
then blowing along. They look like curtains being dragged across
the land.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
Yeah, there's a real visual poetry to these scenes.

Speaker 3 (32:40):
Yeah. The lyrics to the song go on, she did
not know as a child, nor when she was married,
that she was born a witch, evil in her belly.
And then we see wolves running in the snowfields and
a woman on skis with a long stick as a
push pull. She's going alone over a hill, looking exhausted
and pain She's facing down the wolves that are running

(33:03):
from across the field. You don't know, are they threatening her,
are they running with her? What's going on, but then
the lyrics continue. They say, she offered to the stone
god to modern Aca, she gave a white fawn, then
ranged the fells as a deer till the appointed hour.

Speaker 1 (33:20):
Yeah, I was reading that this modern Aca was like
a traditional goddess, that is, a goddess of the earth,
of goddess of the beginnings of life, a protector of
children as well.

Speaker 3 (33:33):
And then eventually the woman approaches a conical structure in
the snow. I think this is supposed to be a
sami lavu, which is kind of similar to a North
American teepee. It's a conical shelter made with poles braced
against one another, and then it would be covered in
reindeer hides. Inside this structure, you've got people gathered together

(33:55):
cooking a meal, and one of them sees the woman
coming outside and pokes her head in to tell the others.
And then the woman comes inside the lavo and collapses,
and the lyrics go on to say iron pierced the
white dough. Then the lap girl slept chill shawl for
a coverlet snow drift for a pillow. And inside the

(34:17):
lavo we see a baby next to the woman, so
it seems she's given birth, and then an elder figure
in traditional Sami clothing holds the baby, and I think
it's implied that the mother dies here. It wasn't exactly
clear on that, but I think she's supposed to die.
And then afterwards we pull out to another landscape shot
of a massive, steep, lonely hillside covered in snow, and

(34:40):
again just the wind blowing sheets of frost over the
top of the pack. And then that's the end of
the opening montage. The whole thing is very I don't know,
it's got a light touch, but it's also a good
bit haunting. And so we cut ahead in time after
that to a very different Now the image is sharper

(35:01):
and the music is more lighthearted, and we see lots
of people gathered for what looks like some kind of
winter games or festival. Throughout this movie, you will see
a common form of individual transportation in this region, which
is a person riding in a kind of ground level
sled pulled by a single reindeer. So when we say sled,

(35:24):
don't imagine like a big, high up sleigh like often
people are just sort of lying back in this sled.
There's basically right there on the top of the snow
with a single reindeer pulling them. And in this scene
we see lots of happy people being pulled around, pulled
all around, and crowds gathered. These people are lying back
in their one seat reindeer sleds. You got dogs running

(35:44):
around barking, and we see reindeer herders in their traditional
clothes standing around, just cruising the vibes.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
Now, did we mention this already? If not, I want
to drive home that I don't think this is supposed
to take place in the nineteen fifties, but I don't
know when exactly in the past.

Speaker 3 (36:01):
Yeah, that's a good question. So I read online sources
saying this is supposed to take place in like pre
Christian times or that, you know, So this would make
me think, you know, at least hundreds of years ago.
But also, like the character one character has a fairly
modern looking rifle. And there's another scene where characters are

(36:21):
in a building that I don't know, looks to me
kind of like a Christian church, and they may seem
to be attending maybe church, or maybe I'm misunderstanding what's
happening there.

Speaker 5 (36:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:31):
Likewise, like the shamanistic traditions and the old religion don't
feel as old and as removed from the people, which
doesn't necessarily bin in exactly when this would be. But yeah,
so it's hard to nail down.

Speaker 3 (36:46):
I truly, yeah, I truly don't know when this is
supposed to be set. But certainly, like the characters don't
have TVs or anything, right, Yeah, anyway, so we've got
these these reindeer festival games going on, and in this sequence,
we're going to meet a couple of our main care
We meet a beautiful young woman, Parita and a handsome
young man Aslock. And then Rob I pulled in a

(37:07):
screenshot of Parita and the first time we really see
her face here. She is the grown up version of
the baby we saw featured in the opening folk song,
and Oslock is a local reindeer herder and an eligible bachelor.
And when we first see Pirita's face, she is angelic
with a big, wide grin, and her eyes are sparkling

(37:28):
in the sun. You can see they really set it
up to like so that her eyes capture the light
and it glints on her. You know, they look like wet.
I don't know, it's a good. Gross, But like she's sparkling.
She's sparkling, and you can even see a little sparkle
on her cheeks. I think there's like snow melted catching
the light there. Yeah, and Parita is taking part in
the reindeer sled race here. She's having a great time.

(37:50):
She's happy, Yeah, just beaming with life. But also credit
to Miriami Kosmanan's performance here, because she always manages to
make Perita seem a little bit strange and mysterious even
when she's happy and when times are good.

Speaker 1 (38:08):
Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, even early on, there's
something else there. I don't eve know. Is it a
deep loneliness? Is it something else? We'll have to think
about it as we perceive.

Speaker 3 (38:18):
But asloc is also in the running here in this race,
he seems to command his beast with confidence and pleasure.
As lucks, he's a big ball of fun here.

Speaker 1 (38:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
One visual theme I started noticing right around this sequence
that I thought I should flag Rob. The movie has
lots of shots of mostly empty snowfields that foreground, a
single tree all by itself, piled up with snow, sometimes
even bent over sideways under the weight of old frost

(38:50):
and I think that is probably an intentional pattern, and
it's kind of a subtle visual cue that communicates something
about loneliness. Loneliness is a theme of the film, and
it shows it as loneliness as this kind of cold
and heavy burden that smothers you.

Speaker 1 (39:07):
Yeah, that's great. Yeah, And then just in general, like
the world is this vast cold landscape and you find
warmth and community and in very small packages here and there.

Speaker 3 (39:19):
Yes, I totally agree with that, though I would say
that like the focus is on something about the physical
world and the necessities of life creating these things. It's not,
it seems to me, not really a comment on anything
about the community being alienating or isolating. It's more just like,
these are the realities we have to deal with to survive.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
Right, right, And you know, they get out in the
snow and they have some fun. They they're laboring in
the snow. They don't you know, obviously it is an
environmental hurdle for life, but they're doing their best. And yeah,
just there are multiple scenes where our main actors are
like iced over, but they're smiling. I think that's telling
and it matches up with some things I've heard about

(40:04):
surviving in cold environments where like people say, yeah, I mean,
you just got to find a reason to go out
in the snow and live your life.

Speaker 3 (40:12):
So eventually Parita and Aslac seem to have become separated
from all the other contestants in the race. I don't
know if they stopped caring about the overall race course.
Now they're just playing together. It's just the two of
them dashing over this big hillside, treating each other flirtatiously.
And eventually Aslac makes a move. He throws a rope
and lasso's Parita, pulling her off her sled, and he says,

(40:37):
a reindeer is fast, but a wolf is faster, and
they embrace, laughing, and they tumble down the hill in
their furs, rolling over each other. And there's a shot
here where when they come to rest, Aslac cradles Parita
in his arms and she looks up at him with
this big, toothy smile, and it really shows off this

(40:57):
angel witch duality that kosmon And brings to the role,
Like if you look at her face here, Rob, she's
looking so happy, but also if you just change your mindset,
she could look so dangerous.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
Yeah, yeah, and she will totally have those those Dracula
moments later on.

Speaker 3 (41:15):
So as Lac leans down to kiss her. And there's
also something funny about the way he looks here. They've
done him up so that his eyebrows are just spiky
with ice, so he's got like icicles over his eyes. Anyway,
after the games are done, we see Parita and Aslac
canoodling together in a reindeer drawn sled and riding around
outside the festivities. Clearly they are falling in love, and

(41:38):
Aslac asks do you like me? And she smiles and
leans on him, but doesn't say anything. So soon after this,
Parita is at home with her family. I believe these
are her adoptive parents, and we see Aslac and his
father coming in his sled to visit the house. I
don't know if this was supposed to mean anything, or

(42:00):
even if it was intentional, But Rob, did you notice
in this scene that as Aslac is coming down the road,
a black cat runs across his path?

Speaker 1 (42:09):
You know, I didn't notice this when I watched the film,
but it's a great point. I'm not sure what it means, Like,
I don't know what the black cat's role might be
in the folklore of northern Finland, but in absence of that,
maybe it's just like cinematic tradition of black cats. Or
sometimes you just have a cat that is going along
and mining its own business and does not care that
you're shooting a film.

Speaker 3 (42:29):
Get that cat out of the snow. Speaking to Parita's parents,
I think this is Aslak's father, and he says, this
must be some kind of metaphor. He says, we have
a merchant, you have a bird, sell us the bird,
and this is a marriage proposal. And Parita's father asks
Aslac if his intentions are honorable, and he promises they are.

(42:51):
He makes a pledge that he will treat their daughter well,
and then the parents unfold a cloth containing the bride price.
It's several coins and pieces of jewelry. And you get
the sense that within their community, these people they're not rich,
but they can lead a rich life.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
Yeah. Yeah, there's not a sense of the people here
like barely scraping by in the edge of civilization or
anything like that.

Speaker 3 (43:21):
No, there are environmental hardships, but but this is their
way of life and they make it work, so there
is there. It's not communicating it seems to me anything
about like poverty or hardship of that kind. But but yeah,
so we see that, and then the next thing, you know,
we're at the wedding and it's a rock and party,
like friends and relatives come to poor gifts onto the

(43:42):
pile on the table, and they're drinking from this frothy
booze booze chalice. Actually it's mostly just one guy drinking
this chalice of and they're dancing around in the warmth
of the fire. Eventually, this might be Aslek's father, I think,
who says the drink is drunk bread and salt eaten.
And then there's this interesting thing where like Parita and

(44:04):
Aslac are kept behind a curtain. They're hidden from everybody
else at the party, and one drunk guy keeps peeping
through the curtain and tells them they look just like
a couple of lovebirds. And then at the end that
there's a funny shot where they're like closing up shop
at the end of the wedding party, and like everybody's
still like trying to peek in the door and somebody's
trying to force the door shut.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
Yeah, yeah, this is the sequence where I kind of
wish I had color because I feel like this is
a This is a colorful in its own way, you know,
rosy depiction of traditional life. Is it accurate, I don't know,
but it has an accurate feel to it, at least
in my viewing.

Speaker 3 (44:40):
I think the clothes in the scene alone would have
had a lot of cool colors.

Speaker 4 (44:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:45):
Yeah, But after this, now our main characters are married
and time passes. Of course, Aslac a reindeer herder, which
is a job that requires travel. He has to take
his stock around, I guess, to different feeding grounds. Probably,

(45:07):
so he's often gone, leaving Parita home alone for long periods.
And when Aslac is gone, we learn Parita is lonely.
We see her excitement in one scene where he returns
with a giant train of animals. This was shot with
a real reindeer herd, and it's just amazing to see
this ocean of antlers bobbing. Is this column of like

(45:29):
hundreds or maybe even thousands of animals clops on by?

Speaker 1 (45:33):
Yeah, so many reindeers.

Speaker 3 (45:35):
So Parita and Aslac race to meet each other, and
she just collapses into his arms. There's not just love
but relief when he comes home. But the night of
their reunion, that's when the vibes first start getting a
little dark. We see the couple together in their bed,
and the camera slowly zooms in on them as we

(45:55):
hear these uneasy, dissonant chords swelling up on the soundtrack,
and we see that Aslac is asleep, but Parita is awake.
She's laying there and her eyes are open, and she
turns to her husband and she rubs his chest and
tries to rouse his attention, but he's you know, he's tired.
He sound asleep, and he rolls over, turning his back

(46:15):
to her. And then Parita rises up from the bed
and slowly walks over to the fireplace to warm her hands.
And she turns and sees a man not Aslac staring
at her from a bedroll on the floor. First time
I watched it, I was like, wait, who is this?
But I think this is one of the other herders.
I think they're all just sleeping in the same house

(46:37):
here and you know, one of her husband's coworkers here.
And the man looks at her and she smiles, and
then she climbs back into bed with asloc this little
encounter in this exchange of looks feels significant, but I
truly wasn't sure what to make of it, Like, was

(46:59):
there supposed to be some kind of sexual tension with
this other man? Or is he frightened of her for
some reason? You could kind of read the scene that
way at stage, like that could be what it means.
She hasn't really done anything overtly creepy yet, but she
is just I don't know, there's something in the music
and the way she looks at him that is a
little maybe off, and we don't know like what exactly

(47:23):
is going on, but there's something she has a moment
with this other man.

Speaker 1 (47:26):
Yeah, I was wondering, is the man's supposed to be
creepy here? Like I'm thinking to some of the themes
here that are not all that overt I guess. But
you know, we begin with this scene where her mother
played by the same actor, is chased by wolves there,
so is this guy sort of like are we thinking

(47:47):
about like he's kind of a wolf himself? Is he
like looking at her with predatory eyes? I'm not sure. Again,
the film is kind of leads it to your interpretation.

Speaker 3 (47:58):
Yeah, yeah, And so we have this question, like, ultimately,
what is it that Parita wants? We know, and we'll
explain more about this in following scenes, but we know
she's unsatisfied in her marriage somehow. But is this only
because she misses her husband and wants more attention from him,
or is it because she desires other men as well?

(48:20):
I think you could or is it something else? I
think you could interpret it multiple ways? And Parita herself
never says in the film. Later, in her wear reindeer form,
she does seduce other men, But I wonder should we
take that as like her true to herself, as her
desire or is that just like the curse, the evil

(48:41):
magic acting through her?

Speaker 1 (48:43):
Yeah? In either case, like, I think more communication was
necessary its marriage.

Speaker 3 (48:49):
So later there's a scene where Aslak is preparing to
leave with his herd once again, and before he goes,
he gives Parita a gift, a young white reindeer, which
he says she can have as a pet. So it's small,
with soft looking fur, and it's asymmetrical. It only has
one antler on one side of its head, no antler

(49:11):
on the other side. And then Parita says, kind of
sadly off you go again, and who knows for how
long I'll miss you? And he hugs her and he
tries to comfort her. He says he'll be back soon,
but you can see that she is not happy in
the way that like as he pulls away, she's still
just reaching after him. So now Parita is alone again,
alone with her one antlered white white reindeer dough, and

(49:34):
we see her feeding it from a big ball of lichen.
I think that's what it is. She's got, like this
big wad of something that she feeds it. And then
later she sits in her house staring out the window
at this bleak landscape with gray clouds, and there's like
a beam of sunlight cutting through the gray clouds, like
we saw earlier in the opening montage. She's obviously yearning

(49:55):
for something, and then suddenly it's a swis is flipped.
A change comes over Parita and she has decided to
do something. So she hurriedly packs some items in a
bag and ventures out into the snow. She goes over
a hill, across a plain all the way to a
tiny isolated cottage in the fells. And I thought this

(50:18):
was an interesting choice for the equivalent of what you
would get in other movies. The witch's hut, which is
often in the movies I'm more familiar with, is in
a forest or is in a swamp. And here it
is the only vertical feature we can see in an
otherwise completely empty expanse of snow, and it.

Speaker 1 (50:39):
Itself is covered in snow. Snow everywhere.

Speaker 3 (50:42):
So Parita goes to the door and lets herself in.
The cottage is filled with smoke, The floor is filthy.
There is a goat chained to a post in the
middle of the room, and then squatting on the floor
tending to a fire. Is salku Nila, the shaman, the wizard,
kind of the cunning man. I wondered if you had
a thought on this, rob do you read Salkunila as

(51:05):
an inbounds or an out of bounds practitioner of magic
from the society's point of view? Is he more like
the village priest or the village shaman, or is he
more like some kind of outsider warlock.

Speaker 1 (51:19):
That's a great question, Yeah, because if in other films
where we have this character, sort of character show up,
you know, generally in the form of a witch, you
can have different flavors they more. They may lean more
old religion, more pagan, or they may lean more satanic
dark magic. Right, and in either case kind of like
position a sort of spiritual distance from the mainstream. But

(51:44):
then here we get the sense that whatever the spiritual distance,
there is a there is an actual physical distance from
the rest of the people. I'm not sure how we're
to take that, So I don't know. I guess I
got the overall impression that the shamanistictor that he represents
are at least not that far from the mainstream. But

(52:04):
for whatever reasons, what he does is a little removed
from the rest of the community. He is kind of
an individual corners. Yeah, he is an individual with with
influences in the other world, and that's why you come
to him.

Speaker 3 (52:21):
Maybe it's in a place where like you could buy
beer at the store, but he's a home brewer.

Speaker 1 (52:26):
Yeah, so.

Speaker 3 (52:29):
Salkut Nila. He turns his eyes up to uh Pirrito
when he when she comes in, and he says, I
knew you would come, And then he hangs a pot
over the fire. It looks like maybe it's a pot
of soup. I thought, it looks like it's got a
big bone sticking out of it.

Speaker 4 (52:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (52:45):
Yeah, and Parita quickly begins digging into her bag and
pulling things out to lay before the wise man. She
has brought, She has brought gifts. This is I guess
how she's going to pay for his services. First of all,
she pulls out these round loaves of that look like
giant bagels. Rob, I understand you figured out what kind
of bread product this is.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
Yeah, I was curious, maybe a little hungry at the time,
and it's it's it's I'm not gonna attempt to pronounce
its finished name, but it's apparently a traditional finish rye bread.
And that hole in the center it has to do
with the way that they're they're they're hung on poles
at some point in the process of making them. But yeah,
so some sort of finished rye bread here.

Speaker 3 (53:23):
So you sent me an article. It's like after you
bake them, you hang them up on a pole over
the oven, and that like keeps them warm or dries
them or something.

Speaker 1 (53:31):
Yeah, so they're not donuts or bagels.

Speaker 3 (53:35):
There's something unique, but so yeah, she pulls out these
large bagel shaped loaves of bread and then a wedge
of cheese that's got to be reindeer milk cheese.

Speaker 1 (53:44):
Right, it's or goats, I mean this guy, but this
guy's got goats and he doesn't have cheese, so that's true.

Speaker 3 (53:51):
He wants that cheese, I think. She also pulls out
a dried piece of meat, and then finally the good stuff,
a bottle of clear spirits. This could be vodka or
maybe some kind of traditional sami liquor anywayland Salkunila sees
what he wants. When she produces the bottle, he snatches

(54:11):
it and immediately just starts chugging. And after a good
long chug, he turns back to Parita and he says,
love potion.

Speaker 2 (54:20):
Is it?

Speaker 4 (54:20):
You?

Speaker 3 (54:21):
Women young and old the same? And then while he's talking,
he also keeps doing this bizarre, slow, high pitched laugh,
and he says, your man off in the fells, salku
Nila knows the cure. And then here he pulls out
a leather pouch and begins to pinch things out of
it and sprinkle them into the pot. He says, herbs

(54:43):
from beyond ten fells, beside ten streams, some graveyard salt,
the balls of ten bull moose, the strength of ten
bull moose. Salkunila the Wizard can bring back lost reindeer,
Salcunila the Great Wizard can raise the dead. And then
I love this part. He pulls out a divination object.

(55:06):
It is a drum with a skin loosely stretched over
the top as its head, and all over this skin
are illustrations and drawings, these patterns, and then he places
a small stone or bone dye of some kind on
the drum and then starts beating the drum with a
clawed mallet and this makes the little dye object like

(55:29):
bounce up and down and land on different parts of
the drawings on the drum head. Yeah, I like this,
so I assume where the bone piece bounces on the drum.
Here tells her what she must do, and Sualkuneila explains
the message. He says, you must sacrifice to the stone god,
the first living thing you meet on your way home.

(55:50):
Then no reindeer herder will be able to resist you
this winter. You will. But then he trails off. He
stops talking, and he leans back, looking frightened, like he's
frightened of Pirita. And she tells him to go on,
but now she's looming over him. With this menacing posture
and this crazed look in her eyes, and she reaches

(56:14):
out a hand flexed like an animal's claw and presses
it down against the painted drumhead. And now the drum
begins to sound, releasing this new, deep, deeper, echoing beat,
and the bone dye. The little object starts to dance,
even though Salkunila is not touching the drum. Nobody's beating
the drum, but we're hearing a drum beat and it's reverberating.

(56:38):
So there's some kind of terrible power radiating out of
Parita herself into the drum and Rob, I don't know
if you have a way of describing the way her
face looks in this scene, but it's intense.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
Yeah, the lighting is totally different, you know. Of course,
this is a darker environment to begin with. And then yeah,
she has this kind of sinister look on her face.
Something has awoken inside her. The spell. It kind of
comes back to what you said earlier. This spell has
has interacted with a pre existing condition that was unknown
to our wizard here, that she herself is a born witch.

Speaker 3 (57:14):
Yeah, and he announces it now he Sualcuniela screams witch,
and Parita looks possessed. And then also an interesting distinction
to wonder, Like, so he's doing something like some kind
of magic or witchcraft, but there's a different thing he
means by her being a witch. Maybe it's that like
he knows the the the magical arts, but she's got

(57:36):
something you know, inborn in her, like she has powers.

Speaker 1 (57:40):
Yeah, Like I get the sense that like he is
one who has reached into the other world and has
some degree of power and is probably over selling his
ability saying he can raise the dead and so forth,
and you know what's that vodka? Yeah, he's kind of
a mess. Uh. And at this point he realizes, oh,
she's the real deal though, she has powers that emerge

(58:01):
from within the other world. And yeah, maybe he even
has some some notion that there are going to be
some interactions with how his magic and her magic are
now going to manifest.

Speaker 3 (58:14):
Right, So Parita looks possessed, and then finally the drumhead
rips open and Sualkunila shouts in terror as he like
falls back into the corner of the room. He reaches
for his goat for safety, and Parita stares into the
fire as it climbs higher and then the scene's over.
After this, Parita, we see her back outside heading home.

Speaker 1 (58:35):
Now did she get a love potion at all? It
was just well, she was given a ritual to a
ritual to carry out, so there's not so much a potion,
but yeah, a ritual to carry out in order to
achieve this effect.

Speaker 3 (58:47):
Right, So she's going back home and she's come out
of her trance. But she as she's crossing the distance,
she hears the words of the shaman again. She has
to sacrifice to the stone god, the first living thing
that she meets on her way home. But when she
arrives home, Oh no, there's Osloc outside the house. He's
home early. But fortunately before she reunites with her husband,

(59:11):
he like the pet reindeer with the one antler. He
lets go of it and it runs ahead of him
into her arms. So the white reindeer now is the
thing that she has to sacrifice Aslac tells her that
he missed her and he had to come home early
to see her. And at this point I wondered, oh, man,
should you interpret that as like I made the trip

(59:33):
to the shaman for no reason, like he came back anyway?
This was the thing I wanted or did it already work?

Speaker 1 (59:41):
Hmmm, that's a good question. I also had a question
about how there's not, again, not a lot of dialogue
in some of these In many of these scenes, so
like the wizard is just saying like, oh, yeah, I've
got what you want. You want a love potion, No
reindeer herder will be able to resist you. And then
but she doesn't say no, no, no, just my husband.
I'm just trying to make my husband more attracted any reindeer.

Speaker 3 (01:00:05):
Well, it's unclear again, I think it we don't fully
know whether she is just wanting the attention of her
husband or whether she's interested in the attention of other
reindeer herders as well. It could be either one. Yeah,
I mean I think it is clear she misses aslock,
so that's at least a part of it. Yes. Anyway,

(01:00:33):
later we see Seepurita remembering what she has to do,
so she packs up and she harnesses the young reindeer
and she sets out for a journey to the place
of the Stone God. This is one of my favorite
parts of the movie. So, like, she passes these strange
landscapes while she's on the way, there's one part here, Robert,
I don't know if you know what we're looking at.

(01:00:54):
There's this big ice field and then there are these
regularly spaced vertical structures that are totally covered in snow
and ice, and I was like, are these just like
really narrow trees that are regularly spaced this way or
is this something man made? I truly have no idea.

Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
I mean, I took them to be trees when I
was watching the film, but I could be wrong. Yeah,
they could be structures of some sort, but they've been
blasted by the snow and are now just encrusted with it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:22):
So the atmosphere and the music become much more frightening
as she nears the place of the Stone God, and
it is a giant, dark stone monolith looming over a field,
topped with a reindeer skull and massive antlers. And then
below the stone there is a reindeer graveyard, though all

(01:01:43):
we see is snow with just hundreds of reindeer antlers
sticking up out of it. It's a wonderfully composed scene.

Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
Absolutely yes.

Speaker 3 (01:01:54):
So Parita reaches the altar and then she kneels down
with her pet and she raises the knife and then
plum bunges the knife in to complete the sacrifice, and
here some power comes over her. Yet again, Parita is overwhelmed,
maybe possessed in some way, and she passes out and
has all these visions. She has visions of her life,
of her meeting with the shaman, of there's a vision

(01:02:17):
of a reindeer running across a field in photo neegative
and something now has changed, And I think maybe this
is a good point to kind of zoom out and
speak in a more summary way about the rest of
the plot of the film, and then we can, I
don't know, focus on anything that stands out to you
that you want to talk about. So after this point,

(01:02:40):
the ritual seems to have worked, but at a terrible cost.
It sort of it comes with a twist. It's like
a monkey's paw sort of thing. She is indeed now
irresistible to the reindeer herdsman, but at night she transforms
bodily into a wild white reindeer and roams the fells

(01:03:02):
committing murders. So in her reindeer form we see this
first scene where she attracts the attention of a herder
one night and he wants to catch her, not as parita,
but as a reindeer, to add her to the herd,
I guess. And this is funny because it plays on
this duality of like, she will be irresistible to the
reindeer herdsman, and sometimes what they're interested in is business

(01:03:24):
they want, you know, they want this reindeer, or maybe
there's it's playing on this folk belief that like catching
a wild white reindeer is like something that brings great fortune.

Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
Right right. But then the other side of that, of course,
is that on one level or the other, she is
a woman pursued by.

Speaker 3 (01:03:41):
Men, yes exactly. And then so when this guy does
catch her, she transforms back into her human form and
then she kills him. And this cycle repeats several times
with these different sort of lurings out and murders in
where she will alternate between her reindeer form and her
human form.

Speaker 1 (01:03:59):
And she kind of has vampire teeth to a certain extent.

Speaker 3 (01:04:02):
Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, we see that, and it's freaky.
And in response to the killings, the villagers get very
upset and they try to come up with solutions to
combat the evil witchcraft in their midst. The solution favored
by Aslak, not knowing that the witch is his wife
is cold iron, and that is the only way to

(01:04:22):
kill a witch. So you see these forging scenes where
these got you know, people who are I think not
professional blacksmiths, are just doing the best they can. They're
like beating out these iron tips into spearheads so that
they can kill the witch with cold iron.

Speaker 1 (01:04:36):
Isn't there one scene where he's making one in the
room with his wife. Yeah, yes, she's in there, Yeah, yeah,
and she's kind of like recoiled in the corner because yeah,
this is like an instrument of death for her, But
he doesn't know that she is the witch. She is
the reindeer.

Speaker 3 (01:04:53):
So at one point you mentioned the ranger with the
rifle that shows up from the south. He is not
part of the culture of the film and is not
impressed by stories of magic and devils. He tracks the
reindeer and he tries to shoot it, but I think
some magical trickery goes on and the rifle explodes in
his face, and then he sees the animal transform back

(01:05:16):
into a beautiful woman and he sort of loses his mind.

Speaker 4 (01:05:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:05:20):
After more killings, the villagers form a mob to hunt
down the wear reindeer, and in this final in the climax,
here Parita is frightened and she flees. She keeps transforming
back and forth between her reindeer and human forms. She
tries to go back to get help from the Wizard
from Salkunela, but finds that he has been killed in

(01:05:40):
his cottage. Rob, how did you interpret that? Who killed him?
Do you think it was the villagers?

Speaker 1 (01:05:45):
I don't know, because he's in there, it's cold and frozen.
It's unclear when he died exactly. So I mean, it
also doesn't seem and he was necessarily practicing a lot
of self care, Like did he drink himself to death
in that hut? Is it because of what he saw after?

Speaker 3 (01:06:06):
Did she kill him?

Speaker 4 (01:06:07):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
Did she kill him? Yes? She may have. She may
have killed him un sight unseen, you know, off off
off camera, off screen, after that initial encounter. I don't know.
It's again, it's it's it's a bit ambiguous, but it's
clear that like he cannot help her in the same
way that this ranger from the south cannot help the villagers.

Speaker 3 (01:06:27):
Yeah, and so she also she's seeking help wherever it
can come. She tries to go back to the place
of the Stone God to ask for mercy, but no
mercy will be given. And then finally, in her reindeer form,
she's caught by Aslac, who gores her with a cold
iron spear, after which she transforms back into herself, leaving

(01:06:48):
Aslac mortified and he kneels down over her, realizing he
has killed his wife, and he brushes her hair tenderly
while she's dying, and then we just see the snow
blowing from the slope of the fells and the cold wind,
and that's the end. It's a very bleak ending.

Speaker 1 (01:07:03):
Yeah, we don't even get at the end. We close
out and then we get the like the studio, the logo,
and that's it.

Speaker 3 (01:07:10):
So so many interesting questions. I've raised this a couple
times now, but I want to come back to evidence
we can look at in the film for what is
Parita's attitude? Like, so much of her inner life is
left mysterious, and that's part of what makes the film
and the character so alluring. She's clearly feeling and thinking
so much, but we get hardly any dialogue or voiceover

(01:07:33):
to share the details of those thoughts and feelings. With
the audience, So, like, what is her attitude towards the
killings that she's doing in the form of the White Reindeer.
I found this commented on in a book entry I
was reading about the movie. This was in a book
about werewolf films called The Werewolf Filmography by an author
named Brian Sin and in the entry on the White Reindeer,

(01:07:57):
Sin writes, quote, it remains ambiguous to what triggers the
change in Parita, nor is it clear whether she embraces
the metamorphosis. At times she seems distraught over what she's
done in her bewitched reindeer form, while at others she
appears to revel in it, even sporting vampiric fangs. In
one scene, like you mentioned, Rob as her witch half

(01:08:19):
seemingly takes over. It's as if she has two personalities,
the innocent Parita and the evil Witch. So I think
that's a correct description. I wonder what we're supposed to
take away from that. And likewise, the other question we
raised about Parita's motivations, what is at the root of
her unhappiness and her desire at the beginning of the film,

(01:08:41):
What exactly is it she wants to be different, and
also like what does she feel about her transformations. Is
she desiring a kind of violent liberation from some aspect
of her life or is it more just that she
desires love and companionship. It could go either way.

Speaker 1 (01:09:00):
Yeah, yeah, it's you know, I suspect it's it's getting
to some degree into this idea of like how does
she fit into this masculine world around her and the
desires of men, including her husband, you know, like she
wants to be loved, she doesn't want to be murdered.

(01:09:21):
But that's that's where we end up with the slaying
of her monster self as perceived by the community, and
you know, the murder of her human self. And you
know that this is also a case that the ending.
We can point out that this matches up with with
where wolf and shape shifting tales from ancient times, the

(01:09:43):
idea that the monster is killed, and in the killing
of the monster it is revealed that they were actually
this individual, or if not a particular individual, than a
human being. They are revealed in the death. Sometimes there's
another form of the reveal, which we've all seen in
werewolf movies before, where it's the wound the beast is wounded.

(01:10:04):
Then later we see the wound on the human individual
and we realize that the two are one.

Speaker 3 (01:10:09):
Can I point out another variation? Often in werewolf movies
the character transforms into the werewolf, not only to in
this transformed state get the desire to kill. Usually it's
a kind of tragic thing where the werewolf in their
human state doesn't want to do violence to anyone, but
they transform and then the wolf side of them takes

(01:10:29):
over and it wants to do these killings. But it's
also the wolf side of them is the kind that
can do the killings. It has the physical power and
the teeth and the claws and all that. So it
is through the wolf body that the violence is done.
That's not always the case in The White Reindeer. In fact,
I think, am I remembering it right? That Parita usually

(01:10:52):
seems to like she will take the form of the
White Reindeer at some point in the luring of these men,
or at some point in the pursuit, or at some
point in the escape afterwards. But like when she does
the killing, she often is in her human form, isn't she.

Speaker 1 (01:11:09):
Yeah, that's a great point this. I was reading about
this a bit in some of the information I was
reading a few months ago about the female werewolf in folklore,
in mythology, and in cinema, and the authors may the
point that, yeah, you'll often see that the female turns
into a werewolf, and in turning into a werewolf, they

(01:11:30):
turn into a masculine or more masculine form of themselves
in order to be this dominant monster. Yeah. And in
here in this film, yeah, she seems to generally kill
in human form. And we should also point out again
that it is not a graphic picture, so when people

(01:11:51):
are killed and animals are killed, it's generally not shown cut.
It's left to our imaginations.

Speaker 3 (01:11:57):
But I have the impression, based on having watched it
a couple of times, that most or all of the killings,
the last thing we see of her is like she's
about to do it, and she's in human form, and
then maybe she warps away and you know, runs off
in the white reindeer form.

Speaker 1 (01:12:12):
Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, it seems like the white reindeer form
itself is more about mobility, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:12:18):
But also about attraction.

Speaker 1 (01:12:19):
Yeah, yeah, attraction, mobility. Yeah. I'm also reminded of other
folkloric traditions in which there is some inhuman threat that
may take on the form of two different things that
may attract a male, one being a female woman and
the other being a horse. Those kind of traditions kind

(01:12:39):
of seem akin to what we're seeing here in the
modes of attraction that are employed. You know, the men
are like, oh, there's a great reindeer, I need to
catch that from my hurt. Or there is a beautiful woman,
I want to go see what she's up to, chatter
up a little bit, that sort of thing. I'm not
sure how we might completely factor that into our calculations here.

Speaker 3 (01:12:58):
Yeah, there is a kind of duality of attraction along
those lines.

Speaker 1 (01:13:02):
I should also point out I don't have materials put
together to really go in depth on this, but we
should also acknowledge that like a dear woman or a
dear lady is also a part of different Native American
mythologies and traditions, and I think there is like some
amount of overlap in the way that that figure is

(01:13:25):
sometimes presented in what we have here in this film.
I'm not saying there's any actual connective tissue between these
but maybe they maybe they speak to some common threads
in the human psyche. I'm not sure. If nothing else,
you know, we might view it in the same way
that we have different werewolf traditions and other shape shifting
traditions that have popped up in different parts of the world,

(01:13:47):
some influenced by each other, but some with no connections.
But they sometimes end up embodying some of the same ideas,
the same attitudes, the same relationships between the wild world
and the domesticated worldeen civilization and the wilds, and so forth.

Speaker 3 (01:14:04):
One more question about Pirita. Do you see any element
of her getting her comeuppance in the film or do
you think it's purely tragic, just tragic what happens to her,
Like is it not really her fault or is it
partially her fault?

Speaker 1 (01:14:18):
Oh? I mean, in my viewing of the film, it
felt tragic. It felt like the path of doom that
was like writ from the day she was born. You know,
if I go back and piece it together, like you know,
in question where her mind was and all of this,
I could maybe lean more into the retribution view. But

(01:14:39):
I know, I think the pure cinematic experience is one
of doom and tragedy.

Speaker 3 (01:14:43):
Yeah, I feel the same way. I was just wondering though,
because I mean, it has structural elements that would lend
themselves to a kind of, you know, punishment of hubris
in some way, that there's something this character really should
have done differently, that they did wrong and they're being
punished for it. But I don't know, when you think
of the content of it scene to scene, it doesn't

(01:15:04):
quite feel that way. It feels more like the evil
magic is sort of acting through her rather than an
expression of herself. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:15:14):
The weird thing though, is like we tend to side
with her because she is the character we know the
most in the movie, and yet at the same time,
we really don't know her at all. We have very
limited information about where her mind is in all of this.

Speaker 3 (01:15:29):
But again, I think that's one of the things that
makes the movie so exciting, is like, is the mysteriousness
of this character. I can't stop thinking about her in
a way.

Speaker 1 (01:15:39):
Yeah, Yeah, there's an art house ambiguity to this and
a dreamlike quality, fitting since it seems that this film,
at least in part, emerged from the mist of dreams.

Speaker 3 (01:15:49):
Okay, well, I think that's all I've got on the
White Reindeer.

Speaker 1 (01:15:52):
Yeah, the White Reindeer. Yeah, I highly recommend it. It's
easy to get. This is not one that as of
this recording, is super were hard to find, so we
recommend it, especially if you want some counter season programming.

Speaker 3 (01:16:06):
Like we were saying, freeze out your mind while your
body sweats.

Speaker 1 (01:16:10):
Yes, all right, just a reminder to everyone that's Stuff
to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast,
with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, short form episodes
on Wednesdays, but on Fridays, we set aside most serious
concerns to just talk about a weird film here on
Weird House Cinema. You can get the Weird House Cinema
episodes in the main Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed,

(01:16:32):
but we're at least experimenting with Weird House Cinema as
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which is a great place to be if you're a
film fan, you can find us there. We are a
weird house. There's a list of all the movies we've

(01:16:52):
covered over the years. And sometimes a glimpse ahead of
what's coming up next.

Speaker 3 (01:16:56):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer, JJ Posway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:17:18):
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