"Pathfinder" is a fascinating adaptation of a 1,000-year-old Norwegian legend, filmed in the frozen mountains of Norway's Kautokeino region.
The cold is apparent from the outset as women's faces are leathered and reddened and men's mustaches and beards are frozen with icicles and snow patches. That cliche about weather and terrain playing a character in a movie is certainly true here — it's impossible not to feel chilled while watching this picture.
The setting and time period — 1,000 years ago — are simplistically, yet impressively re-created. The weaponry involved is strictly spears, knives, fists and bows and arrows. The quickest mode of travel is skiing, and for long distances reindeer are hooked up to sleds.
The story follows a 16-year-old Lapp boy named Aigin (Mikkel Gaup), whose entire village — including his own family — is wiped out by the evil Tchudes, a band of marauding wild-eyed thieves who think nothing of routinely killing children and domestic animals along with men and women.
Aigin escapes the Tchudes, though wounded in the arm with an arrow, and the Tchudes are still tracking him when he wanders into another nearby Lapp camp and collapses. After being patched up, he warns the Lapps of the Tchudes. The Lapps quickly load up their sleds and escape to the coast.
Aigin, however, realizes that the Tchudes will only track the Lapps down and slaughter them, along with the entire coastal village, so he opts to stay behind and fight it out, as hopeless as that may seem. He eventually gains three recruits, but the ensuing battle turns to tragedy.
Ultimately, Aigin is captured and forced to lead the Tchudes to the coastal community, but the lad uses cunning and skill to outwit the Tchudes as they cross treacherous mountain peaks.
There are some very exciting moments in "Pathfinder," and especially noteworthy are specific scenes that use the snow and mountains to advantage, as with a stunning sequence that introduces us to Aigin, who is skiing down a hill, and later when he has trouble holding onto one of his skis above the Tchudes. Not to mention a humorous moment when a Lapp skier hits a tree and his skis go down the hill without him.
Unfortunately, there are also scenes where writer-director Nils Gaup shows that he has seen a few too many Hollywood pictures, and he leans on movie cliches and too many close-ups in telling his story.
Still, "Pathfinder" remains a fresh, involving film with more than enough splendor and thrills to compensate for its minor flaws, and young Mikkel Gaup, who had never acted before his lead role here, is marvelous, as are most of the other performers.
"Pathfinder" is in the Lapp language, with English subtitles. It is unrated, but would probably get a PG for violence (some of which is fairly intense) and a brief scene of nude women in a sauna.