by Cain Noble-Davies
Worth: $14.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Sámal H. Hansen, Bjørg B. Egholm, Bjørn M. Mohr, Esther á Fjallinum, Hans Tórgarð
Intro:
… a contemplative slow burn
Wanderlust is a common fixture in stories about the young. Seeing the world, running away and joining the circus; the need for escape is a recurring drive, either to actively see more of what life has to offer, or just to find something that isn’t the here and now. The term itself originated in late 18th century Romanticism, an extension of the movement’s emphasis on connecting with the natural world by iconifying the urge to see it in all its glory.
Writer/director Sakaris Stórá’s latest work is an appraisal of the Romantic mindset in the modern day… but it accomplishes such by rejecting wanderlust.
The phenomenon itself is quite present throughout the film, as it seems like everyone around young fish factory worker Kári (Sámal H. Hansen) wants to leave the Faroe Islands – old friends wanting to study abroad or join a ship’s crew, employment is hard to come by, even the fish seem to be leaving in droves.
Kári, however, doesn’t see things that way. He’s quite supportive of those who are finding their own path in life, in his own ‘man of few words’ way, but he sees too much of himself in the lush green fields and smoothly-rippling waters to want anything else. And with the way Stórá and DP Virginie Surdej capture the natural beauty of the wild world around him, it’s easy to see why.
Underplayed and quiet, almost to a stress point even at its sub-90-minute run time, The Last Paradise on Earth’s presents the Faroe Islands as a natural wonder, and yet, by pointing out that it’s a place that would understandably make others question their options, and genuinely cause hardship for those who remain, it also avoids making the same mistake that the old-school Romanticists often made of romanticising certain societies as if they were so devoid of problems as to be utopian. As every youth (hopefully) learns, running away from problems doesn’t make them disappear.
And indeed, ‘youth’ is a pertinent word in this film’s case, not just because of the age of its central character, but the age of Faroese cinema as a whole. Between the manpower and financial logistics of filmmaking, and its cultural and geographical proximity to the Danish mainland, Faroese cinema itself only has a few decades of history to its name. The nation’s first film award, the Geytin, came into being in 2012, and it was won by a younger Sakaris Stórá for his short film Summarnát. In that context, this optimistic but honest depiction of these Islands is especially vital, like a personal declaration that its people don’t need to leave these shores in order to find beauty or even the means to express that beauty. It lives here, in these waters, in these skies, and in these people.
The Last Paradise on Earth is a contemplative slow burn that does as much to champion the land and its people as it does its culture and, in turn, its art. Even outside of nationalist pride, it makes for a refreshing change of pace from how Western cinema fetishizes working class narratives, refusing to accept sympathy or condescension and instead just showing this place. As it stands, rather than what industry could turn it into.
