Suonikylän talvielämää

Vinterliv i Suenjel / Winter Life in Suenjel. FI 1938. PC: Kansatieteellinen Filmi. D+SC: Eino Mäkinen, Kustaa Vilkuna. Specialist: Karl Nickul. Silent, 25 min. A fine 35mm KAVA print. Viewed at Cinema Orion, 15 April 2009 (Dokumentin ytimessä 47: Saamelaiset / In the Core of the Documentary 47: The Sami People). - A beautiful print. - Revisited the classic of Finnish ethnographic cinema, with scenes of sheep-farming, washing clothes, net-fishing through ice, children playing with the lasso (suopunki) and with reindeer horns, producing thread from veins, spinning by distaff and filling the shoe with hay. Also shown is baby-rearing and removing blackheads from the skin of the back. The whole property of the skolt sami family is packed in a sleigh (ahkio), and winter survival techniques are displayed. - Ilkka Kippola and Jari Sedergren criticize the film for breaches of intimacy, but the Sami director Katja Gauriloff did not find the film improper in that way. - A beautiful film in the Flaherty tradition.