‘A New Kind of Wilderness’ Review: A Grieving Family Returns to Civilization in a Heartsore Documentary
variety.comGuy Lodge Film Critic The opening minutes of “A New Kind of Wilderness” promise some kind of documentary advertorial for off-the-grid living.
Over idyllic shots of her hippy-hunky husband Nik and their three cherubic children camping, foraging for food and literally hugging trees in verdant Norwegian woodland, photographer Maria Vatne’s voiceover soothingly espouses the liberating virtues of “getting out of the rat race” and “being free and full of love.” It all looks wonderful, like “Swiss Family Robinson” updated for the era of Instagram cottagecore, and a cynic might say that it hardly seems sustainable.
It isn’t, though not for the reasons you might guess. Mid-montage, Vatne’s voiceover goes silent, and the lifestyle photos give way to ones of her undergoing cancer treatment, before the family is shown without her altogether.
It’s an elegant bit of wrongfooting right upfront, signaling that, as is often the case with documentaries shot over a long timeframe, “A New Kind of Wilderness” is not the film that director Silje Evensmo Jacobsen initially intended to make.
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