Laila (1929)

 

Director: George Schnéevoigt

Screenplay: George Schnéevoigt

Cast: Mona Mårtenson as Laila; Tryggve Larssen as Jåmpa; Harald Schwenzen as Anders Lind; Peter Malberg as Aslag Laagje; Cally Monrad as Mor Laagje; Henry Gleditsch as Mellet; Finn Bernhoft as C.O. Lind

Ephemeral Waves

Tonight all should be happy.

Continuing on in terms of learning more about cinema, one night I learnt of the existence of Laila, a Norwegian silent film. One night was left to view said film, entirely heard of before that night and from a country, Norway, whose cinema is neglected. The restored version I saw even includes the births and deaths of everyone who created the film, a time capsule set among the Lapps culture of the region, a reminder that films like this, when preserved, come from an entirely different era and that in itself is a virtue to them being seen..

Among the Lapps, in a tiny village of Finnmark in the frozen wilderness, a strong willed woman, fleeing wolves with her infant daughter, speeds across the snow on her reindeer driven sleigh only to lose the baby in the pursuit. The film itself is lost in time, a novel adaptation set in a timeless region of ageless snow covered wilderness, where the baby is found by Jåmpa, a Sámi man of an indigenous Finno-Ugric people in real life, who is the servant of Laagje, a rich man who adopts the infant girl and christens her Laila. Made by George Schnéevoigt, a Danish filmmaker who also edited and wrote the film, Laila in its two and a half hours proves itself to be a melodrama, one of tangents as its entire first forty minutes is a story in itself, Laagje proving his virtue when he learns Laila is the daughter of a merchant, showing honour upon learning this at Christmas.

Laila will return to being his daughter again when the plague arrives next summer, with a boat full of dead bodies to emphasis this. The melodrama proves a perfect catalyst for the film, able to bring to life a culture rich in detail. The adult Laila is given by her father, as a talented rider, a great white reindeer named Stormwind; it proves heroic but, thinking of a Finnish film The White Reindeer (1952), the mind could not help but be amused wondering if anyone was going to turn into a were-reindeer lie that film. Making this joke is not out-of-place either, as the two films together are rewarding documents of this region of people in these environments, with their lives based around reindeer, by individuals taking an anthropological attitude.  

The film looks gorgeous, due to not only its creator's skill but also the location and time. Silent cinema is unfortunately difficult to sell to some, and I myself have always had to readjust to it a style at times, just by telling itself entirely though its visual vocabulary, due to how entirely alien to modern day filmmaking it can be. This type of cinema is however become more dreamlike as history passes, turning what is a very conventionally told drama with anthropological aspect into something magical, able to get away with its length due to the ethereal nature of the production. The verisimilitude contrasting this helps considerably as this film, when required, also feels like a snapshot of an older time, in its costumes and what the characters do. Said film also had to stage stunts which could not be faked. Alongside the sledding sequences, one major one has a person ride on rapids for real in a boat, and grip a real tree by a waterfall. It could be so easy to forget that, when not one of the dramatic scenes, still and based on acting, but in these action sequences how much coordination they required especially as this film, based around snow and sleds, is unique in terms of such scenes.

It is timeless in another way as a film which tackles the conflict between groups, unfortunately still with us, Laila falling for a "darro" merchant and a taboo for her step father. Whilst the arranged husband he has for her, Mellet, is also dashing, it is not true love and considering he was once the young boy who roped Laila like a reindeer as a baby, this is not going to succeed as a relationship. It is going to end in an obvious way, but for all the jaded and cynical modernity you could bring to the film, you can look back to this silent film and see a greater sincerity. Even the Bible Laila gets, a bound with the merchant, is something that is not discarded as in modern culture as a symbol, and is neither badly latched upon to the point of sycophantism from modern organised religion. Instead, with its wholesomeness, it carries more weight as a gift of love. The sense of reality in creating this world also feels so palpable, shot in snow bound environments that look like they staged the same for centuries before the film schedule, but when Laila does embrace the extravagance of cinema, bordering on the ludicrous, it is Jåmpa fighting wolves in the snow, played by real trained dogs than CGI ones, for true love to succeed. If that is not true movie magic, in content and emotion, in one scene I do not know what is.

Surviving into the modern day, part of itself is made in realism, the other in a haze as even Mona Mårtenson, a Swedish actor, playing Laila herself looks like a figure from dreams, made more poignant as she tragically passed only in her mid fifties. Director Schnéevoigt himself would remake this film twice, going for a third attempt in colour in 1958 which was taken over by someone else¹. What he made regardless in the first Laila needs to be more readily available as a good soulful tonic.   

 

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1) Referred to HERE.