Stolen

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.

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....

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.

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.

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.