The snowy wilderness of northern Finland provides the otherworldly environment of Erik Blomberg’s The White Reindeer (1952), one of the earliest Finnish horror films. Filmed on location in the Lapland tundra and drawing from both Finnish mythology and indigenous Sámi shamanism, it is folk horror stripped down to its barest and most beautiful. Blomberg makes the blinding white of the snow-covered wilderness just as eerie as the pitch darkness of night pierced by the light of a campfire. His stark, monochromatic imagery has a dreamlike quality more reminiscent of Carl Theodor Dreyer than the shadowy mysteriousness of Jacques Tourneur.
Mirjami Kuosmanen (who co-wrote the screenplay with Blomberg, her husband) plays Pirita, a young Lapp woman who falls for and quickly marries Aslak, a kind reindeer herder. But married life is lonelier than Pirita expects, with Aslak leaving her for long stretches of time while he works. So, she turns to the village shaman for a love spell that will make her husband desperate to remain by her side. The shaman helps her, but discovers through his spellwork that Pirita is destined to be a witch. The ritual appears to have worked at first—all of the men in the village suddenly can’t take their eyes off Pirita—but when the moon is full she turns into a ghostly white reindeer, luring hunters into a snowy canyon before turning back into human form and killing them.
In Sámi folklore, white reindeer are highly spiritual creatures believed to bring good luck and fortune to those who capture them. The appearance of a vampiric one represents a radical disruption in the natural order of things, reflective of Pirita’s attempt to use magic to subvert the gender roles that marriage has thrust upon her. Pirita’s animal transformation is an expression of her frustration and desire, but also a tragic self-fulfilling prophecy. The film is grounded in her perspective, so we see how she yearns for her husband and his company. But, the same magical essence that makes her so magnetic and desirable is what will sever her ties with her community, who will be forced to hunt her down.
The White Reindeer screens tonight, November 3, at BAM as part of the series “Folklore & Fairytales.”
