If it wasn’t for Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, Italy for showing two feature-length films, En Djungelsaga (The Flute and the Arrow, 1957) in 2006 and Mitt Hem är Copacabana (My Home is Copacapana, 1965) in 2017, the world may well have completely forgotten about Arne Sucksdorff (1917–2001), the Swedish (mostly) short, documentary filmmaker, whom my mentor, William K. Everson had introduced me to, while I was a graduate student at New York University in the late-1970s. A short film of Sucksdorff’s that I remember fondly, En kluven värld (A Divided World, 1948), was filmed during winter time, where, typically for his nature films, the director was unafraid to show the predatory nature of animal life. I was fortunate to be able to see Copacabana in 2017, which turned out to be a pioneering work of hybrid documentary and fiction, and which had been highly regarded in Brazil during their own new cinema movement – Cinema Novo. It was a revelation, especially in terms of Sucksdorff’s directing of child actors, which showed him to be the equal of Vittorio De Sica (e.g., Ladri di biciclette/Bicycle Thieves, Italy, 1948) and the more recent work of Abbas Kiarostami (e.g., Where Is the Friend’s House? (Iran, 1987). So, when I learned that a complete boxset of Sucksdorff’s films had won an award at the Cinema Ritrovato in 2018, I set about trying to purchase a copy. It has taken me six years, but a copy arrived in my mailbox from Perth, Scotland on August 14th.

Arne Sucksdorff was born in Stockholm and had a privileged upbringing, studying biology in school. He became a notable photographer in Sweden, and he worked with Rudolf Klein-Rogge in both the theatre and cinema, while he was conducting art research in Berlin, in 1937, where he also became aware of German Expressionism.

Review of Disc 1, Kortfilmer (Short Films):

Sucksdorff’s first film, a seven-minute short, Augustirapsodi (An August Rhapsody, 1940), which may have been shot in Germany before he returned to Sweden, is a beautiful, lyrical nature film. Alternations between low angle shots of the sky, often past tree branches and high angle shots of water, often showing the reflections of trees and beyond, An August Rhapsody encompasses a 24-hour period, with a focus on two young women cray fishing through the night, and the escapades of a bird of prey, an Osprey. Thus begins Sucksdorff’’s inclusion of human beings in his optimistic explorations of nature. From his second film, 12 ½ minute, En sommarsaga (A Summer Tale, 1941), on, for most of his filmmaking career, his work was produced by the government-sponsored AB Svensk Filmindustri. While maintaining an emphasis of high and low-angles, A Summer Tale features many close shots, to better observe the play of insects on flowers, initially, and then the world of “small” predators, a frolicking fox cub, who struggles to carry a stolen loon’s egg, who is ignored by an owl, and who befriends a slightly larger cub. They are both unable to catch a hare, even after waiting for nightfall, and in the morning they are shown to be jealous of a falcon, whose prey is a smaller bird. The film ends with wider framings of the sun’s rays brilliantly shining through trees.

Sucksdorff’s next two films were set in Sweden’s far north and focused on the Sámi indigenous people of northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. They had been persecuted in ways similar to the First Nations and Inuit people of North America, and the producer/director/ writer/cinematographer/editor gave a remarkably positive representation of the reindeer-herding Sámi. Vinden frän vaster (Wind from the West, aka “People of the Reindeer,” 1942) relates the springtime movement to the mountains, and the animals’ birthing grounds during the “short summer” period. The narrator’s voice discusses the grandparents and the children who are looking out from their “civilized” homes at the nomadic movement. The excitement of the reindeer herd’s travels is matched by Sucksdorff moving his camera more than in the earlier films. Most surprisingly, the film calls into question the Swedishization of the Sámi, where a boy, Nisse falls asleep at school where he imagines himself dressed in traditional clothes, and participating in lassoing reindeer horns and arctic char. For this central episode of the film, the voice changes from male to female, as the “wind from the west,” when his name becomes “Nila.” At the end of the imaginary, dream sequence, the boy climbs a cliff to steal a reindeer bone from an eagle’s nest, as a right of passage, with the voice claiming that “work must be pleasure and joy.” Although it is clear that a small amount of staging for the camera had occurred in these early films, in Wind from the West we find a first example of drama included within Sucksdorff’s documentary structure. The nine-minute Sarvtid (Reindeer Time, 1942), charts the return movement of the nomads in the fall, and their “Sarv Time,” finding the ideal reindeer to kill and eat. Close up shots show all the parts of the animal, demonstrating that the Sámi don’t waste anything. The film ends with beautiful extreme-long shots of nature.

Scott MacKenzie wrote a brilliant book chapter on “Arctic Expressionism and the Poetic Documentary: The Northern Films of Arne Sucksdorff,” in 2019. 1 He closely analyzes these two films and another later short film, Skuggor över snön (Shadows Over [on] the Snow, 1946, 10:14 min.), which he describes in great detail. While complaining that nobody has paid enough attention to these three northern films, MacKenzie notes that with the rise of Ingmar Bergman in the 1960s, Sucksdorff and other Swedish filmmakers disappeared from view, even in their home country. His emphasis on the “poetic” aspects of the films, even their “experimental” tendencies is right-on, but I question the writer’s argument that the works are “expressionist.” The subjective, dream sequence of Wind From the West could certainly be understood as “expressionist,” but Sucksdorff’s insistence on always filming outdoors (rather than in a studio), while his directorial control is always in evidence, brings his work closer to the French “impressionist” filmmaker/theorists of the 1920s, where, for example, rain, mist, smoke and water in Dimitri Kirsanoff’s short film Brumes d’automne (Autumn Mists, France, 1929) connote depression. The work of both impressionist and expressionist painters and filmmakers is suggestive of inner thoughts and feelings, but the latter tend to use abstract designs to make their points, which Sucksdorff only does in choosing his images in the exterior world (e.g., framing through tree branches). As well, it is important to understand his films as being more visually related to the narrative, silent, Swedish feature films of Victor Sjöstrom and Mauritz Stiller, who invariably used natural landscapes, centrally, rather than the predominantly studio set works of German filmmakers of the 1920s.

In 1944, Sucksdorff made an 11 minute promotional film, with Swedish intertitles rather than employing a voice-over commentary, on the building of a dam for the Lits River, Litsälven. In the same year, he returned to form with a longer documentary, Trut! (Gull!, aka “Struggle for Survival”; 17:39 min.), and Gryning (Dawn, aka “The Shadow of the Hunter”; 7:36 min.). Gull! which was filmed on Stora Kaarlsö, an island in the Baltic Sea, begins on a bedrock, with flowers, and with waves breaking on the rocks, which we learn later contain myriads of fossils formed millions of years ago. This is followed by a section on the first of many seabirds, a flock of Murre who seem resigned to allowing a Seagull to steal an egg. Chicks of various kinds are in danger throughout the film until the end when a lone Murre chick jumps off a rock and by instinctive diving into the sea, survives a potential attack. We assume the chick joins a large flock seen in extreme long shot, with the sun glistening on the water. One wonders at how beautiful such images, typical of Sucksdorff, would have looked on nitrate film prints. All of his previous films had included music and natural sound effects, but Gryning has no voice or text. We see two land birds, possibly grouse, fighting, and various small animals running and hiding to apparently avoid the gaze of a man with a rifle. He shoots at a bird but doesn’t gather it up, seemingly not having killed it. He puts a feather in his hatband and later collects a net, perhaps in anticipation of catching fish. Remarkably, the hunter spies a family of deer, but decides against shooting and eventually replaces the feather with a flower!

Increasingly, Sucksdorff employed more camera movement and less narration in his films, and in Shadows Over the Snow, the impressive, downbeat voice of Olof Molander only says enough for us to understand the context. It is the end of winter in Lapland. 2 An owl pounces on a mouse, but drops it when it realizes that a bear is in the vicinity. Naturally, the bear eats the mouse. The film’s careful editing returns to the owl, enabling it to watch over the action, which involves a Sámi boy who is preparing to catch a ptarmigan and who skis home to escape the bear. The father, on skis, and his dog chase after the bear, but when night falls, the dog is repelled and the father retreats in fear. Thus, there is a battle of predators between human and beast, which is won by the bear. Both MacKenzie and myself recognize that one of the most original aspects of the nature films is that animals are never personified by Sucksdorff in the Walt Disney manner. (In fact, we can see the origins of animals behaving like humans in the Canadian short, Grey Owl’s Little Brother (1932, directed by Gordon Sparling), where the “brother” is a beaver.) To Sucksdorff’s great credit, all fauna and flora are always depicted naturally, and human beings, if anything are also understood as being “animals.” Something else important to note is that Sweden was a neutral country in World War II. In their subtlety, Sucksdorff’s films are as far as can be imagined from the propaganda documentary shorts that were being made concurrently in the United States and Canada, where, for example, in the National Film Board of Canada’s examples, Lorne Green’s “voice-of-God” narration overwhelms the film images. Indeed, It is possible that Sucksdorff’s concentration on nature’s battles for survival could be understood as being expressive of, and critical of, war.

Sucjksdorff’s next film, Människor I stad (Rhythm of a City, aka, “Symphony of a City,” 1947, 17 min.) marked a number of departures and advances in his work. From the title, one can understand that it was his first urban-set film, and unlike other “city symphony” films that came before it, we find a concentration on the people, and their interactions, rather than on more general views. To be sure there is a focus on seagulls initially, and following low angle views of them in flight, we are provided with a number of aerial views of the city, as if we are observing it from a ”bird’s eye.” The editing of the film is quite brilliant, matching movements from shot to shot, and, where all of the human action is carefully staged. Boys struggle over a football, an adult man and woman come together during a rainstorm, and in one, remarkable, reflexive scene on the gaze, where a man is making a drawing of a fisherman, while boys look on, the vain fisherman combs his hair and mustache while losing his catch. No doubt the obvious staging of  human action led to the U.S. Academy of Arts and Sciences placing the film in the 1949 Short Subject (One Reel) category, which it won, rather than the Documentary Short  Film category. Unfortunately, the award went to Edmund Reek, considered by the Academy to be the producer of the film, for the U.S. distributor, rather than the Swedish Film Institute and the union for the Swedish tourist business, even though the disc boxset brochure credits show Sucksdorff as the producer as well as the director, writer, cinematographer, and the sound designer. In a 2010 book on Swedish “Experimental Film Culture,” Symphony of a City is written about as a poetic documentary, where the traditions of Swedish documentary and experimental film are considered to be intertwined. The authors consider that the film is “impressionistic” with “its blend of modern, urban life and old traditions.” They write: “Sucksdorff creates a dialectic between more objective and neutral long shots, and more dramatic sequences of close-ups.” 3

Sucksdorff’s 10th film, Den dromda dalen – Soria Moria (Dream Valley, 1947, 11:31 min.) was the most completely narrative, and, most fanciful of his films, so far. Loosely based on the popular Norwegian fairy tale, Soria Moria slot (Soria Moria Castle), but only inasmuch as the protagonist, here a girl, is on a quest for something (but probably not the magic castle). In any event she runs away from her milk-carrying task to walk and climb up a fiord cliff, but ends up going home. Most remarkably, Sucksdorff framed every shot beautifully, with foreground human action accented by the precipitous slopes of the fiord in the midground and misty mountains in the background. This film was also notable for the storytelling of Gustaf Molander, who had already directed over 50 films including a number which had made Ingrid Bergman, famous, e.g., En kvinnas ansikte (A Woman’s face, 1938). Like Sucksdorff, his name would be forgotten in the 1960s.

Sucksdorff would make four more short films before going to India, and becoming a feature-filmmaker.  The first of these, A Divided World is arguably the most notable, having been released in the U.S. and being nominated for a British Film Academy (BAFTA) award. Staged at night and in the snow, it provides in its 8:20 minute running time a dramatic representation of the predatory natural world. A cute, white-haired stoat runs back and forth, in and out of its snowy lair in avoidance of its likely fate. As often in Sucksdorff’s work—he is again credited with producing, writing, directing, photographing and editing the film for AB Svensk Filmindistri—an owl overlooks the proceedings and here captures a hare’s carcass from the jaws of a fox, after it has presumably had his fill. We suspect that studio sets with imitation snow,  may have been employed at times, especially because the lights of a model church, from which we assume, a Bach organ recital emanates, can often be seen in the background, as a faint reminder of human civilization.

Uppbrott (Open Road, 1948, 9:41 min) is a charming narrative and musical short framed by a camera tracking from a train in the beginning, and on the road at the end. A Romani family entertain themselves, especially with dancing, while their motor home’s engine is being repaired. Unusually choosing to invite another cinematographer, Martin Bodin, for this film, Sucksdorff still produced wrote, edited and directed it.  Strandhugg (Summer Interlude, 1950), co-sponsored by the Swedish tourist board with Svensk Filmindustri, is a 14:29 min., narrative short focused on a young woman who crews for her father’s fishing boat, and falls for a handsome captain of another fishing vessel. She becomes jealous on seeing his wife (or lover) return but the beauty of the sun-kissed water revives her happy demeanour. Sucksdorff’s 14th film, Ett horn I norr (The Living Stream, 1951), co-sponsored by a Swedish government, economic planning organization, was his longest, yet, at 23:20 min, and also his most rhetorical, with a (pleasant) voice over narration by Gustaf Molander. Simply stated, the “stream” of the title refers to the fluid connections between the three Scandinavian countries, with a Danish farmer, a Swedish welder, and a Norwegian first mate, all connected in their work, leading to the post-war prosperity of the world, where the optimistic message “helping others is helping yourselves,” prevails. Cleverly the film ends within an aircraft where we meet a Norwegian stewardess, and the Swedish captain seated in the cockpit next to a Danish telegrapher.

Sucksdorff’s final two short films were made in India, and they were very different, one from the other, formally. The first, Indisk by (Indian Village, 1951), by then his longest film at 24:12 min., featured a clever narration, scripted (as always) by Sucksdorff and read by Lars-Erik Larsen, as if it is the voice of an educated man returned to his village, which is suffering extreme drought, and anticipating that, finally the cast system will change, when machinery arrives to dig a deep well, allowing the fields to be irrigated, and where the “untouchables” can drink at the same source as everyone else. It is a remarkable, forward-looking film. The 10 minute, Vinden och floden (The Wind and the River), completed in 1953 and filmed in Kashmir, features a right tracking camera in almost every shot to show how everyone depends on the river as the source and sustainer of life. Interestingly, the great film critic, André Bazin loved Jean Renoir’s The River (1951), filmed entirely in India, especially for its use of colour. He wrote: “… I am quite ready to see the year 1951 as the symbolic date of the colour film, in that The River is the first great film in which colour serves only to render it better still, more expressive and persuasive than the same film would have been in black and white. Renoir’s film does not exist for or because of colour but simply and. Finally, in it, like nature.” 4 Looking back, I would argue that since Renoir focused completely on a British colonial family, albeit very positively with regards to their interactions with the Indian population, Sucksdorff’s approach was much more innovative and forward-looking. On the other hand, Bazin was very appreciative of Sucksdorff’s “animal” films because, unlike other documentary filmmakers who relied on montage editing to structure their work, after the event, the Swedish filmmaker conceived the découpage plan of shot-to-shot editing before filming the natural world. Bazin wrote, “This is one of the most astonishingly original things about Sucksdorff’s films: his films use decoupage practically like dramatic films. Their changes of shot never appear to be determined after the fact by the documentary material at his disposal but rather, as in classical DIRECTING, only by dramatic emphasis on the demands of making the description effective. 5 Having produced, written, directed, and edited 16 varied, innovative, short films and photographed all but one of them, Arne Sucksdorff had become by 1953 a true auteur and deserves to be retrospectively recognized as one of the world’s great filmmakers, formally—brilliant shot composition, editing and movement—who was ahead of his time in championing “Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI),” and recognizing the importance of preserving and supporting the natural world, including the place of human beings in it.

Notes

1. Lilya Kaganovsky, Scott MacKenzie, and Anna Westerstahl Stenport, editors, Arctic Cinemas and the Documentary Ethos (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2019): 92-113. ↩
2. The north region is now known as Sápmi, although the district is still most often termed, Lappland, but the Sámi people feel insulted to still be called “Lapps.” ↩
3. Lars Gustaf Andersson, John Sundholm and Astrid Söderbergh Widdin, A History of Swedish Experimental Film Culture: From Early Animation to Video Art (Stockholm: John Libby & the National Library of Sweden, 2010): 61–63. ↩
4. André Bazin, “Découpage,” in The André Bazin Reader, edited and translated by Timothy Barnard (Montreal: caboose, 2022 [1952]): 290. ↩
5. André Bazin, “Cinema Revealed by Animal Films,” in op. cit., p. 390. Originally published as “Les films d’animaux nous rélèvent le cinema [1955]. ↩

Volume 28, Issue 11-12 / December 2024 Blu-ray/DVD   arne sucksdorff   documentary   swedish cinema