A New Kind Of Wilderness Review

Documentaries can act as gateways into places, people, and cultures, allowing a level of insight that feels incredibly personal and helps us connect to them emotionally. Whether these are ideas we take for granted or seem alien to us, the format of documentary opens our eyes to these things in a variety of ways. Director Silje Evensmo Jacobsen looks to explore all of these in great depth with her new documentary, A New Kind of Wilderness.

The film focuses on a family who live an isolated lifestyle in the wilderness of Norway in an attempt to be wild and free, but after the tragic passing of the mother of the family, Maria, everything changes as they are forced to adjust to modern society, whether they like it or not.

The first thing that must be praised about this film is Jacobsen’s approach to this subject. There is a tenderness and respect towards the family throughout the film, never once picking a side or undermining their situation. This mostly comes through in the way in which the film is shot and presented, choosing to observe everything that is happening in the moment. Seeing how the children cherish this way of living firsthand, rather than being told about it, reinforces the difficult decisions they have to make, as well as the fact that this way of life is all the children have ever known up to this point.

These moments are sporadically intercut with photos taken by Maria before she died, which adds a certain poignancy to the situation A New Kind of Wilderness presents. The photos are incredibly intimate and are accompanied by Maria’s narration that greatly emphasises the emotion of her passing without feeling too forced. It is integrated very naturally, as photography was Maria’s profession, making her loss just that more prevalent across the entire film.

SUPPORT US!!! WE ARE A SMALL, INDEPENDENT FILM WEBSITE WITH NO BIG BACKERS SO IF YOU LOVE OUR SITE AND OUR WRITERS, PLEASE CONSIDER HELPING US TO KEEP FILM JOURNALISM ALIVE!

A lot of the internal conflict in the film comes from the father, Nik, and his continually shifting thoughts on their predicament. Having grown up in England, there is a part of him that feels he should return home, as there is nothing left for him in Norway, yet if he does that, he would be stripping his children away from everything they’ve become accustomed to. Both sides of the argument are well illustrated in the film, and Jacobsen does a fantastic job of never favouring one side over the other. Both outcomes have their pros and cons, all of which Nik is fully aware of, and how he approaches them with his father and his kids is maturely handled.

There is also a touching angle to the film presented in the form of the relationship between Freja and eldest daughter Ronja, who chose to leave the life of seclusion behind after Maria’s death. The bond between these two is beautifully handled here as Jacobsen does little in the way of swaying audience opinion and instead presents it as it is. There is a level of resentment and misunderstanding between the two sisters that beautifully culminates in a letter from Ronja that explains why she did what she did. This is where the film’s emotional core primarily comes from and clearly shows how members of the family, other than Nik, come to terms with and process Maria’s passing.

A New Kind of Wilderness is a wonderfully handled documentary that shows the struggles that come from this unique way of living. Though it could have gone into more detail with the children’s attempts at adjusting to modern life, what we do get is still moving and incredibly poignant for what it is. It’s a film that never picks a side and just shows you what the family is going through as it happens, which is probably the best way it could have approached this subject matter.