#126: Pathfinder
Part of the Top 150 Films series
It’s a shame that more people haven’t heard of this Norwegian historical action film, as Pathfinder is a damn sight more exciting, energising and eye-opening than most films of a similar ilk (or elk?) made today. Shot on location in Finnmarksvidda, Norway, in temperatures as low as –47°C (putting the foibles of The Revenant into harsh perspective!), Pathfinder tells the tale — based on an old Sami legend — of a young man who, after witnessing the massacre of his family, flees to a neighbouring tribe only to be roped in to acting as a pathfinder for the hunters to his new home. Strikingly shot and edited, there are sequences that are so exhilarating and tense that James Cameron would be both immensely proud, and possibly kinda jealous. And all of this in less than 90 minutes! Pathfinder is proof that you don’t need excess bloat to make an epic.
