Acclaimed Nils Gaup film depicts Sámi rebellion of 1852

Breaking a 150-year taboo

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By Kirsikka Moring in Inari, Finnish Lapland
     
      In Norway The Kautokeino Rebellion (in Finnish ”Kautokeinon kapina”), a new film directed by the internationally-recognised Norwegian director Nils Gaup, sparked a heated debate even before its January première.
      The background to the rebellion is argued by some historians as being misinterpreted, while some even went as far as claiming that the Nordic epic is advocating Taliban-style terrorism.
      Today Nils Gaup’s picture is the biggest box office draw in Norway, with a total audience of 400,000. It has already been sold to 20 countries.
     
Some critics say that while being part of the indigenous Sámi people’s ethnic consciousness, the tale is their Wounded Knee in a sense, drawing a parallel between the systematic government suppression of Sámi culture and the situation of Native North Americans.
      The entire topic - of one of the few examples of violent resistance by the Sámi to what was often barbaric treatment - has been a taboo, even though the events of the story took place over 150 years ago.
      The predominantly Sámi audience at the first screening of the film in Finland, at the Nightless Night Festival in Inari, was visibly moved. It was a cathartic experience, coupled with a common sense that justice had finally been done.
      "The burden of shame has been so great that the events have not been discussed in the family”, says Inkermarja Hetta, five generations descended from one of the rebels, Aslak Hætta.
     
The film shows the uprising of the local Sámi population in 1852, with the resulting death of a Kautokeino shopkeeper, the police chief, and two Sámi insurgents. The Sámi were declared murderers under Norwegian law, and two of their number were executed.
      If the subject was a taboo, there is also another suppressed truth at work in the film - the conflict stemmed from the blunt failure to bring together the official church, Norwegian law, and the Sámi lifestyle.
      In Karesuando, the charismatic preacher Lars Levi Laestadius (1800-1861) swept through the area with his fire and brimstone sermons, decrying alcohol and succeeding in converting quite a few Sámi people.
      However, the church wanted to keep the Sami in line, regarding Laestadius as heretical.
      Equally, in the normal fashion of the time, the local shopkeeper and the vicar were making a nice living selling booze to the Sámi and at the same keeping them where they wanted, deep in debt and under their thumb.
      This - among other causes - led to the climax in bloody confrontation.
     
The tale is an especially personal one for Gaup, who was born in Kautokeino and is a descendant of the main character Elen, the Jeanne d’Arc figure of the Sámi. She was Gaup’s great-great-grandmother.
      The Kautokeino rebellion leader Elen was also sentenced to death, but the punishment was commuted to 17 years of hard labour.
      Many other Sámi leaders were thrown in jail without a hearing, and their families and reindeer were left to fend for themselves. Only in 1997 did the Norwegian government and state church offer a formal public apology for the unfair treatment meted out a century and a half earlier.
     
Gaup's film tells a global and sadly topical story.
      One can still find indigenous peoples kept down by alcohol and oppression in the small villages of Siberia or in Greenland, or even in the northernmost reaches of Canada.
      In some cases, alcohol has been replaced by narcotics dealers, but the results are the same.
     
With a budget of more than EUR 6 million, The Kautokeino Rebellion is one of the most expensive Norwegian films.
      An entire Sámi village, including a church, was built in Holmen to represent the 19th century Norwegian village of Kautokeino, and all dresses and requisites were made by local craftsmen and artisans.
      In addition to Norway, the funding for the film came from Denmark and Sweden.
      In 1988, another film by Nils Gaup, Pathfinder (in Finnish ”Tiennäyttäjä”, in Lappish ”Ofelas”) was nominated for an Oscar in the category of Best Foreign Language Film.
      Gaup is planning a new film on Lars Levi Laestadius, while also looking for new openings for movie cooperation in the Barents Region in cooperation with the Finnish actor and film director Kari Väänänen.
     

      The Kautokeino Rebellion will open the Sodankyla Midnight Sun Film Festival on June 11th. It will be coming to movie-theatres elsewhere in Finland in August.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / Abridged from an article first published in print 27.5.2008
     


Links:
  Nils Gaup (Wikipedia)
  23rd Midnight Sun Film Festival, Sodankylä, 11.-15.6.2008
  Norwegian Film Institute
  The Saami (Sámi), Virtual Finland
  Internet Movie Database: The Kautokeino Rebellion
  Kautokeino, Norway (Wikipedia)
  Sami uprising in Kautokeino, 1852 (Wikipedia)
  Lars Levi Laestadius (Wikipedia)

KIRSIKKA MORING / Helsingin Sanomat
kirsikka.moring@hs.fi