“The key a dog has to unlock something in a person is enormous,” Thor-Atle, a teacher at Pasvik Folk High School in Norway, says in “Folktales,” pairing all of his teenage pupils with a canine companion. Pasvik isn’t your typical school, even in its native Scandinavia where it was once designed to furnish a rural community with a free education and transformed itself to have a more universal purpose where dog-sledding is a primary sport and students only spend a year between high school and college, ideally finding out more about themselves when much of the curriculum is built around survival skills. Twenty years after Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady first made a name for themselves with “The Boys of Baraka,” in which young men from inner city Baltimore found there was a lot to learn in Kenya, the American duo have found magic abroad once more where the sight of moose walking around the campus and the Northern lights a constant presence above pale in comparison to watching the transformation of students at Pasvik into more confident adults.
It is “a lot more than a gap year,” Ketil, the school principal clarifies early in Ewing and Grady’s majestic chronicle of one specific class cycle, welcoming a mostly Norwegian student body, though word about the school has started to spread across borders. Romain, a shy Dutch kid, thinks he’ll fare better in Norway, and he is joined by Bjorn-Tore, who like him is a bit of an introvert who has trouble making friends, and Hege, whose father was recently met an untimely end and she’s still reeling from the loss. If nothing else, Pasvik appears to offer a chance to get away from the world, far removed from civilization and as Iselin, another instructor at the school, notes during her first class, while the brain has stayed the same throughout history, the demands on one’s attention have never been greater, and Pasvik, with its focus on practicing patience with activities such as knitting and making shoes, is a distraction-free environment. The kids are allowed cell phones to remain in touch with what friends and relatives they have, but it’s a sign of success that many stop seeing the need for them when they become engrossed by the world in front of them.
You certainly wouldn’t want to reach for yours when Ewing and Grady achieve a similar level of immersion. Big believers in boldly cinematic nonfiction storytelling long before it was in vogue, their confident compositions give a sense of strength for their subjects that it may just take a little while to see for themselves. That’s certainly the case for Hege, the clear star of the film whose mother demands that she pack a little less mascara than she plans on taking initially to Pasvik and would seem to rival MacGyver in resourcefulness by the end of her time there, surprising herself with how she sets up a tent during a challenge to spend a night in the wilderness. This brand of education is not for everyone, as Romain’s trouble even starting a fire is indicative of feeling an overall lack of a spark, but little by little, the effects of the unorthodox education reveal themselves and Ewing and Grady are attuned to even the slightest changes. The students are also startlingly self-aware within this moment of chrysalis, perhaps unsure of what happens after, but able to vividly describe how they feel in the moment.
“Folktales” connects the past to the present when it’s framed by the legend of the Norns and the lessons date back to Norse times, nicely accentuated by T. Griffin’s time-traveling score, employing ancient woodwinds at times and synths in others. Yet the story that unfolds is ultimately timeless as the angst of being a teen is the most difficult challenge anyone faces, even amidst the elements, as is the satisfaction of seeing people realize the best version of themselves.
“Folktales” will screen again at the Sundance Film Festival on January 27th at 11 am at the Megaplex Redstone, January 30th at 9:30 pm at the Megaplex Redstone and February 2nd at 9:30 am at the Holiday Village Cinemas.