Stolen

I worked for Scandinavian Design for 10 years. During that time I never knew anything about the Sami people that populate this corner of the world. We call it Lapland, but the indigenous people who inhabit it call their homeland, "Sápmi" . Parts of northern Sweden, Norway, and Finland, are inhabited by a rich culture that's hundreds of years old, that still rely on herding reindeer. "Stolen" is about the Sami living in today's world.

This movie may not have a unique plot, but it doesn't lack in cinematography, realistic characters, and authentic wardrobe. The plight of the reindeer herders depicted in this film will open your eyes to a life that's full of hard work, struggles with racist neighbors, and dealing with climate change. It also shows how well they have adapted to the modern world of cellphones, snowmobiles, and social media. I enjoyed the little details, like the beautiful Solje jewelry, and colorful costumes. This movie will immerse you in a story that covers about 20 years of a young girl's life. She becomes an outspoken activist against the people who are killing reindeer to punish the herders. Mining also threatens them, even though many herders have turned to working for the mining company, just to survive. There is a rift amongst family members and townspeople who don't want to rock the boat. "Stolen" will leave a thought provoking impression on you. Maybe make you want to travel to "Sápmi". It looks gorgeous both in winter or summer.

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.

A different story about the Harrassment of a community of Sami raindeer herders in Lapland.

The scenery in the movie is beautiful, with the combination of the dramatic lanscape scenes, snow, raindeer and the colourful Sami themselves. I was drawn to the characters here, and their struggle against the surrounding community, the fear of the loss of their historical way of life, and depression amoung some of the main characters relating to their current situation.

It's not an action movie - it's another slow paced story, but very rewarding.

At the time of rating, the movie only has a score of 5.6 out of 10 - it deserves far more than that.

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.

We're in the reindeer herding region. These are the Sami, an indigenous people of Sweden, who make their living from reindeer herding. They have to cohabit with the locals, who want the region to be developed for mining. There's also a non-Sami native who enjoys killing the reindeer. But the police are not investigating. A young Sami woman tries to move the investigation forward against the police's will.

We're constantly in the cold, in the snow. The pace is slow. So is the pace of the film. But the plot, simple on the face of it, contains twists and turns (the mistreatment of women is mentioned, for example) that mean we're not in an investigative film with a false culprit to distract the viewer. The culprit is known very quickly, the plot being that the police never manage to catch him. So this is not a detective film, but a drama. With little vignettes of local life in the Sami community. The film has a realistic tone, which makes it a little slow. But it's coherent. Rather than being slow, it takes its time to develop the plot, articulated with local life.

Note that the music is far too present. It insists in a heavy-handed way to make the film seem suspenseful.