Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Elle Sofe Sara
Starring: Sara Marielle Gaup Beaska, Mikkel Gaup, Simon Marainen, Ayla Nutti
No other movie genre is as divisive as the musical. Once a character starts to sing or dance, half the audience is likely to walk out or switch off. Viewers who are able to suspend enough disbelief to accept zombies, vampires and werewolves will draw the line at someone singing their heart out while swinging around lampposts. Even among those who do appreciate the musical, there is often a misguided belief that the form can't be applied to serious topics, that it only works for romantic comedies. Director Elle Sofe Sara's Árru deals with two very serious topics - the erasure of indigenous culture and sexual abuse - but rather than belittling its themes, the singing and dancing only serves to strengthen their interrogation.
Árru is set in Sápmi, a region that stretches across the far north of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia, and is home to the indigenous Sámi people. The first musical number comes right off the bat as after solemnly burying a stillborn calf, reindeer herder Maia (Sara Marielle Gaup Beaska, a Sámi Rebecca Ferguson) eases her pain by belting out a folk song. There is probably no quicker way to learn what matters most to any particular group of people than to hear one of their traditional songs, and Maia's ditty tells us how much the Sámi value the land. It is an important detail that they don't refer to Sápmi as "their land," but rather a place for which they are simply custodians. The song also tells of the respect for the reindeer, without which their entire culture would go extinct.
Both the land and the reindeer are under threat in Maia's corner of Sápmi, with a Norwegian mining company having purchased the land on which she and her brother Dánel (Simon Issát Marainen) graze their herd. If the mine goes into operation it will mean reducing their herd by half, and given how they are already struggling to profit it would essentially end their farming days.
Seeking legal advice, Maia contacts her uncle Lemme (Mikkel Gaup), a lawyer who represents indigenous causes around the world and has just won a landmark case for a First Nations tribe in Canada. Maia is surprised when Lemme returns from Canada, eager to take on her case, which he fully believes he can win. His enthusiasm is immediately embraced by Maia's teenage daughter Áilin (Ayla Nutti), who rallies the community's youth and is labelled "the Sámi Greta Thunberg" by Lemme. But Maia and Dánel are none too happy with Lemme's presence. There is a dark past in this family that they long ago buried like the aforementioned stillborn calf, and Lemme's return has brought it back to the surface.
The narrative sees Maia face an extremely difficult choice. Does she stand by her brother and expose Lemme, which would likely destroy any hope of cancelling the mine, or does she side with her community and keep quiet? This inner turmoil is played out on the face of Gaup Beaska, who always looks she is suppressing a silent scream, especially when dealing with the community's elders who are fully willing to protect Lemme to preserve their way of life and who treat Mia like a naught schoolgirl. When that scream is let out it is through the film's musical sequences. Some of them are dreams, like an incredible sequence in which Maia is swarmed by naked dancers representing the ghosts of her people. She is almost suffocated by their bodies, a visual representation of the weight of duty she feels to her ancestors. Others, like the final reprise of the folk song that opens the film, see Maia using song to express her turmoil in a way for which she doesn't have her own words (that climactic sequence is guaranteed to give you goosebumps).
Árru reinforces the importance of indigenous representation both in front of and behind the camera. It is impossible to imagine a film like this being made by white liberal filmmakers, who tend to paint indigenous cultures with an infantilising and patronising brush. There is a necessary nuance here that could only come from within the community it portrays. It is not for outsiders to judge whether Maia ultimately makes the right choice between family and community. Árru asks the difficult question of whether a culture is worth preserving if it comes at the cost of one individual's suffering. It is a question worth making a song and dance about.
