Video: Pathfinder

I am getting ready to show this film to my nordic racers as much of the action takes place a 1000 years ago on skis. This film, based on an ancient Sami legend, is a coming-of-age story about a boy who witnesses his family's murder by a brutal gang of thieves. How he deals with these murderers, while protecting the rest of his tribe, makes up the principal plot. The movie is simple--simple plot, simple dialogue, simple (but stunning) visuals, and this simplicity lends a great deal of strength to this work. Everything unnecessary has been cut away, much like the lives of the Sami people, a tribal group closely tied to an unforgiving landscape and climate (Lappland).
Although most of the film is action, there is a wonderful relationship that develops between the boy and the tribe's shaman, or "pathfinder." They have only a couple of conversations before fate separates them, but in those brief exchanges the pathfinder imparts all the knowledge the boy needs to take up the mantle of pathfinder himself.

This film is beautifully crafted, well-paced, and provides a wonderful portrait of a culture which has much to teach.Click on this link to see a two minute video clip.