It was coincidence in the first place, coming across this film on my search for Scandinavian films. The brief outlining of the film's contents on an advertisement for the DVD made me curious, and I bought it without knowing more than those few sentences and the DVD cover, showing a boy holding a fox in his arms.
I didn't regret it for one minute. Although the film is by no means the romantic nature adventure the advertisement suggests, it is both beautiful and disturbing at the same time. In the beginning the story might remind some of us adults of our real or dreamed adventures of our youth. Surviving in and with nature, saving trapped animals, serving a great spirit of nature which appears in the character of an old Indian. But civilization is never far away, and conflicts are bound to come up. And this is where the story gradually changes from romantic to disturbing. Kim, a thirteen year-old boy who opens the traps to free helpless animals, who first inflicts relatively harmless damage to punish poachers and drive them away, has to realize that the extension of civilization cannot be stopped by mere idealism. There are other steps that have to be taken to prevent the forest from being rooted out, the home of countless animals from being destroyed. Idealism becomes sheer desperation, and our sympathy with that boy and his desperate fight on behalf of wild life goes along with the knowledge that probably there will not be a happy end.
Which leaves us deep in thought about the right or wrong of civilization subjecting and exploiting nature.
Both children and adults can profit from the film and its message. It both encourages and warns children and young people who care for nature and wild life. And it shows clearly to adults that human extension will meet its limits at some point, if there is someone who helps nature to claim and, if necessary, reclaim its place in our lives.
