Director: Jessica Oreck.
Running Time: 84 minutes.
Certificate: 18.
Synopsis: One year in the life of a family of reindeer herders in Finnish Lapland. A study of hard work, hard earned leisure and an intricate bond between man and nature.
“Reindeer herding shouldn’t be this exciting,” is not a line anybody who has seen AATSINKI: THE STORY OF ARCTIC COWBOYS has ever said. The documentary that follows, amongst others, the Aatsinki family (Aarne, Lasse and kids), struggles to hold your attention but you’ll find it hard not to be endeared.
Director Jessica Oreck seems to be on a one lady mission to cover life’s obscurities through documentary having previously looked at Japanese obsession with insects (BEETLE QUEEN CONQUERS TOKYO) and the forthcoming THE VANQUISHING OF THE WITCH BABA YAGA, which examines man’s place in nature. Admittedly Oreck doesn’t just focus on the herding and slaughter of reindeer in AATSINKI, we also see some of the workers socially and in their normal habitat.
Sadly these snippets are exactly that and for the rest of the runtime you’ll trudge through shots of wood being cut with knives, reindeer having their ears pierced and cut, and a lot of guts – particularly in an opening twenty minutes that saw a third of the audience walk out.
AATSINKI: THE STORY OF ARCTIC COWBOYS is difficult to admire, but oddly impossible to dislike. Oreck shows us beauty and hard work, sweat in freezing temperatures and a family Christmas. It’s one of the odder things you’ll see and it will often bore, but is still worth a look.
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