Das Leuchten der Rentiere

The movie is severly misscategorised and this seems to be the main issue with bad reviews, that it is a lame thriller...

This is a great movie about the struggle of indigenous people trying to protect themselves and their traditional lifestyle in the face of predjudice, discriminaton, hatred, misogyny and violence.

It feels very real and unsettling at times, because it is something you can imagine all over the world. They might not kill the *Reindeers* of the Navajo, Rohingya or Koorie peoples, but besides that they often face the same hardships and fights as the Sámi in this movie.

I'm going to check out the book by sámi author Ann-Helén Laestadius this movie is based on.

Its shelved mostly as contemporary fiction btw and does not try to be a thriller....

As a thriller this film is barely adequate BUT I still enjoyed watching it, basically for the Sami culture. I had never even heard of them before and was surprised to find out there was a group of white indigenous reindeer herders with their own language who suffered bigotry from descendants of migrants. Seems to be a global theme, huh? I even did some reading about The Sami after the show. It's a very interesting story which I will be studying more. Back to the film itself: to be fair it is well filmed, the characters are well developed and the performances are good. And beautiful landscapes. It does get a bit repetitious with certain character conflicts and snowmobile chases. But it is a directorial debut and, like I said, I kinda liked it. 7 stars.

I'm so sick of the standard formula for American films that involves nothing but violence and evil, and the worst qualities of human beings. This film has touches of that, because that is part of humanity, but I also appreciate that it was based on a true story and it is, in the end, a triumph for a woman protagonist who has dealt with a lot of adversity. I hope we can see more films like this. The characters are realistic. Hopefully the story is closely aligned with the true story. It's also eye-opening to an American like me who was not aware of this part of the Swedish population. Again, great movie.

I do not understand the low rating this movie has at the moment. I found it a gripping tale that had me genuinely feeling for the characters and their struggles.

The movie is fine. Editing and scenography and all is good. It's not an American blockbuster. But as a European I am glad about that (and maybe used to Scandinavian pacing in films, but even so).

The new light cast on a culture that's often overlooked and treated as a "perfect little touristic outing", with its own struggles in our modern world, is a welcome one in my opinion. The story is built up well, and so are the characters. Give it a shot. I watched it in the original language as well. I feel like it does a lot more service to the movie and culture.

I genuinely believe people that have issues with the story or characters are as prejudiced as some characters in the movie itself.

While this movie is far from perfect it tells a thrilling story about the racism and prejudice that the Sámi face in their everyday lives. The cinematography is beautiful and the acting is stellar, especially by the protagonist. Since it is based on a book, it can perhaps be forgiven about falling into the same tropes about the Sámi being so close connected to their reindeer (it feels as if every movie makes sure to point out how important the reindeer herding is to the population even though far from every Sámi does this for a living).

The plot was decent and I can understand the frustration that the Sámi must feel since acts of violence towards them and their livestock is far from fictional. A few characters were underdeveloped and didn't add all that much to the story, which made the movie feel disjointed at times.

Overall it is worth the watch and tells an important story.