Three Miles North of Molkolm (2008)
Director: Robert Cannan, Corinna McFarlane
Language: English
Runtime: 120 Minutes approx.
Age Rating: 15
Genre: Documentary
Reviewed by Ross Miller
Three Miles North of Molkolm is probably the first proper experience in a cinema I have had in a long, long time. Although I didn’t like the film all that much I can still admit it had a hold of me with its attention-grabbing cinematography, almost overwhelming soundtrack, and the utterly peculiar things it showcases.
Three Miles North of Molkolm is a documentary about a Swedish festival where people can go to find spiritual fulfillment. Things like sweat lodges, sharing circles, and fire-walking are amongst the activities shown.
I am not entirely sure that this film would work anywhere else than in a cinema or perhaps a sophisticated home theatre. Unlike a lot of documentaries I don’t think it’s suited to watching on DVD on a regular TV. I think you need the huge screen, surround sound, and darkness to truly take it in properly.
It’s not a particularly enjoyable film, despite its worthwhile elements, but rather feels like you have to work to get through it. This isn’t as bad as it sounds, as some films you simply have to put in effort to get what’s intended out of it, but rather a compliment of sorts that it’s worth the effort to appreciate it. I didn’t quite come away with what I expect was the intended overwhelmingly good effect but at least it kept my attention until the end and I didn’t want to walk out.
The festival the film showcases is peculiar, to say the least, to anyone (such as myself) who is completely new to anything like it. I just couldn’t “get it”, no matter how hard the film tried. There’s a rugby player participating in the festival who is basically the representation of most of the audience; he just doesn’t get it, either. He says things like, “What’s the point? All it is is a bunch of people chanting about pain and fear,” that I’m sure the audience is thinking themselves. At the same time, though, that inexperience and unfamiliarity helps to make the film all that more interesting; we get to partially experience something in a film that in all likelihood we will never experience in our own lives.
One of the key elements, perhaps even the most important, is the music; it plays the most noticeable and overwhelming part, anyway. In the credits it mentions that most of the soundtrack was either originally written or selected from a specific music festival, which I think makes it strangely more admirable.
I found the people in the film attending the festival to be really quite interesting. Save for a couple of annoying ones, I found them to be likable, interesting, and I wanted to see more of them and hear more of what they had to say. The film does get quite repetitive in its scenes of storytelling, and towards the start it shows one particular activity a few more times than was needed to get across how it feels, and it goes on at least 25 minutes longer than it needs to. I find that most documentaries get their point across within the first hour and the rest just seems there to make up a longer runtime. I find with most of them that they only require 90 minutes maximum and thus they would be a lot easier to digest.
The film was made by a couple of first time directors, Corinna Villari-McFarlane and Robert Cannan, and I have to say it’s an impressive debut indeed. Although it would seem disappointing from a more experienced filmmaker, I can overlook some of the film’s flaws because it’s a debut.
Whether it’s a good or a bad thing, I’ve never seen a film quite like this before. But since I can’t really say I enjoyed it then I can’t really say I liked it a great deal, although I marginally did like it. I still recommend it however, but as a cinema experience and not just a watch on DVD.
