[SKRIVA] Film invasion in Lapland...
- From: Ahrvid Engholm <ahrvid@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "skriva@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <skriva@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "ficionmags@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <ficionmags@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 16:06:16 +0100
On my mother's side my family is from the province of Lapland, which is a big
chunk of northern Sweden (the northenmost Finnish province is also named
Lapland). This week our sweet government controlled SVT seems to have a Lapland
theme in the afternoon we-bought-the-rights-cheap afternoon flicks. I hope
they'll also show "Terror in the Midnight Sun", which you all already can find
here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v×2D9BbeMAU
The Swedish title for this space invasion film was, in translation, "Space
Invasion in Lapland". As I understand it, it was shown for three days in a
provincial cinema in Norrköping and then taken down. Supposedly the American
producers thought the Swedish actors spoke so bad English that they had to
re-edit it and shot new scenes before US release, which fared no better. It has
now become a minor cult classic.
It's about a meteor, shown to be an alien spaceship, crashing in Lapland and
locals fighting a teddybear monster. And huge parts of it are tourist
propaganda for Lapland, with wonderful skiing scenes, a sexy lady doing figure
skating and an international James-Bond-type-of bar in the mining town of
Kiruna.
As I'm writing "The Son of the Midnight Sun" ("Midnattssolens son", 1939) is
running. It seems to be a somewhat more accurate film than the absolutely
absurd "Laila" (1958) they showed yesterday. Eg the Laplanders actually speak
their language, instead of Swedish with Stockholm accent...
They are called "the Indians of Sweden", or Laps, or Lappar in Swedish, today
Same is preferred, Sami in English, or something like Sapmi in the Sami
language (actually several dialects, related to Finnish but Finns won't
understand it). The reindeer herders in the North, about 30 000 people.
Though just a minority today are into reindeers it is a business, not without
importance. You can find reindeer meat in any half-decent Swedish food store
and I suppose much is also exported. The Samis are split between Sweden,
Norway, Finland and Russia, I believe about 80 000 in total, but if we count
"Sami descent" it could be 100 000's. NHL back legend Börje Salming is one, so
is the best Swedish woman downhill ski racer Anja Pärson.
Though "The Son of the Midnight Sun" (still running) seems to be half-decent,
showing real Laps, perhaps somewhat idealised, yesterday's "Laila" was almost
as much science fiction as the Space Invasion film...
It was partly about a conflict between "new settlers" and the Laps, where the
Laps were all from Stockholm. Or at least, they tended to speak "national"
Swedish (ie close to Stockholm dialect) and not a word of Sami language was
heard. All were skiing and reindeering around in their traditional
blue-yellow-red dresses. Here pics of the traditional Sami costumes (someone
also thought it was inspirational for modern fashion - fine!):
http://magical-mystical.blogspot.com/2012/06/fashion-inspiration-from-nordic-sami.html
But those dresses are for special occasions. And there were no "new settlers"
in 1958 - that was in the 1700/1800's! The film makers simply tried to imitate
land conflicts from the American Wild West (which was also 1800's!). All Laps
in this film lived in their traditional "huts", not too dissimilar to American
Indian teepees, but in 1958 all lived in houses, and the teepees were for
short periods during summer herding. Not a vehicle around, even if the Laps in
the 1950's had adopted the more practical snowmobile.
One thing I remember from visiting my mother's village in southern Lapland in
my childhood, is that the Laps were known to know magic... Treating diseases,
finding stuff, putting spells on enemies etc.
--Ahrvid
Ps. Writing this on a lap-top...:-)
Pps. Also to the SKRIVA list.
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