The Lithuanian Legend of Witches Hill
Each year I have the pleasure of traveling abroad, in part to seek out the folklore and legends of other cultures. Though every country I have visited (53 as of this trip) has its own take on the supernatural, I find it fascinating that from Egypt to Germany, and Iceland to Singapore, every culture without fail agrees that ghosts, demons and witches most definitely exist.
On this year’s visit I discovered Lithuania, a country full of fairy tales and legends about its history, geography, and its people. Many of these amazing stories never make it outside of the country, often due to the language barrier. However, you need only to sit and talk to a native Lithuanian to learn the mystic legends that surround their country. Following the advice of one such local I set out to pay a very early morning visit to Raganų Kalnas, Lithuanian for Witches Hill.
Located in the sleepy little island village of Juodkrante just off the coast, Witches Hill is situated on a long, narrow islet called Curonian Spit. It is made up of beautiful sand dunes and dense pine forests, and the only way to get to it is via ferry leaving from the town of Klapedia, which only adds to the magical quality of the location.
You can tell a bit about an audience at Fantasia just from how they react to what goes on screen before the movie starts. You don’t get trailers before a movie, though sometimes you see a trailer for that year’s festival, using brief clips of several of the films playing that edition of Fantasia; this year’s trailer often drew cheers. You get a couple commercials, from a very limited selection; there’s one particular commercial for Nongshim noodles that’s played for several years and often draws warm applause for its earnestness. And of course there’s the meowing, an audience tradition — after the light goes down and before the movie starts, people in the audience meow, others shush them, still others make other animal noises. How much of any of this you get depends on how playful the audience is, and how excited they are for a crowd-pleasing thrill-ride. Which means, from the noise an audience makes before a film begins, you can tell what kind of a film you’re about to see.
My last movie of Sunday, July 15, was a film I knew little about going in. It was The Scythian (Skif, Скиф), a Russian film directed by Rustam Mosafir from a script he wrote with Vadim Golovanov. It started late, and for most of the day I’d been unsure whether I’d stick around to watch it; in the 11 hours between leaving my house and the time it started, I’d ingested a few handfuls of peanuts, one (1) tin of off-brand cola, and a few mouthfuls of water. Still, I took my seat, the movie started, and then I quit paying attention to my physical body for one hour and forty-seven minutes. The Scythian is one of the best action films I’ve seen in years. It’s engagingly violent, and the violence is done well — but more than that, it’s filled with cleverness and unexpected twists. If you’re a fan of sword-and-sorcery or sword-and-sandal movies, you owe it to yourself to see this movie, and as soon as possible. (And I note it’s being released August 14 under the title The Last Warrior on VOD, Blu-Ray, and DVD.)