Det stora äventyret

«It is the love for the natural realm, and especially for animals, that fuels most of Sucksdorff's movies. In this, the filmmaker is not alone; recently, several films with similar subject matter have been made, in which the natural world is enriched by the emotions and attitude of the observer.

At one end we find Disney with its main characteristics: a vague, but sincere, awe at the size and variety offered by the world of nature, and a smile of relief at the anthropomorphic recognition of the possibility of comparison with the human world. Much of the material collected by Disney and his colleagues is truly spectacular, but their films suffer from a certain sentimentalism (the only casualty in all of The Living Desert was one bat out of several thousand) and generalisation. On the whole, the products of the True Life series do not emphasise the relationship between animals and the environment, whereas the Hungarian production The Kingdom on the Water and the delightful Russian documentary History of a Ring succeeded in this, both of which are characterised by a keen sense of the environment. But only Sucksdorff infused ecology with poetic elements. 

While, unlike Disney, he never distorts this world of his, he does enclose it within very clear boundaries. For Strindberg's compatriot, nature is, fundamentally, fierce. Predators, in fact, attract his attention the most. This can be seen in his earlier work (A Divided World) as well as in The Great Adventure. The lynx, the fox, the otter and the capercaillie, brutal in their mating, are his heroes, while the deer exist solely to be frightened, the hares to be put to flight, the hares to be devoured. And it is this inclination that gives the film a particular flavour: that of a fierce sensuality, at once primitive and refined. This contrast is also reinforced by the setting, a Swedish forest heavy with the humid summer haze and delicate in the sharp contours drawn by the winter climate. Sucksdorff, however, does not impose this mood or any allegorical value on the animals he observes. His little foxes fight over a chicken, tearing it to shreds, only to play in the sun a moment later or climb a branch or cross a mountain stream. Never have more complete and captivating images of animals been captured than these. The otter and the fox doing somersaults together and, an even rarer episode, a male of the latter species dancing with the laundry hung out to dry. An equal sensitivity also adds to the atmosphere. The opening sequence of the film is enchanting, a world of mist and morning light, of dew and cobwebs, of bubbles mysteriously crossing the river water where the otters hunt their prey. Compositionally, the film is fascinating: the swaying corn, the reeds immersed in the muddy marshes, the design of the saplings standing out against the white of the snow have the grace and linear delicacy of a Hokusai or an Utamaro artwork. Moreover, using a magnetophone, Sucksdorff has composed an elaborate soundtrack that captures the piercing calls and breaths of the forest.

There are two parts to the film. The first tells the story of the little foxes, the second that of the otter rescued and held captive, in secret, by the two little boys who live on the farm at the edge of the forest. Sucksdorff attempts to relate them by framing the film in the succession of seasons, but it must be admitted that he does not fully succeed in integrating the different sections. The greatest difficulty is represented by the second episode. In the first part, Sucksdorff's role was that of a sharp, gifted and sometimes contemplative outside observer. The work, therefore, works quite well as long as human beings are seen in their most immediate relationship with animals, that of hunter and prey. In the second half, the emphasis necessarily shifts to the children, their motives and relationships. With all the dexterity of his directing, with all the skill in making the children (especially the youngest, his son) react, the method followed is different: less brilliant and sometimes even a little pedestrian. Perhaps this mixture was doomed to failure anyway [...]». (Tony Richardson, "Sight and Sound", 1955, in Le avventure della non fiction, edited by Adriano Aprà, Mostra Internazionale del Nuovo Cinema, Pesaro 1997, pp. 312-313)

«Lasting more than two years in the making, Det stora äventyret focuses on a boy, an otter, a fox and numerous other animals; it appears to be strongly autobiographical. It is the tale of an adult who remembers the time when, at the age of ten, “I woke up to life all around me” in the forest. He wakes up to the struggle for survival, with its cruelties, to the rushing of the seasons; to sex. He witnesses – and we with him – various couplings, including the noisy one of the capercaillie, “similar to the mating of prehistoric dragons”. Det stora äventyret echoes an idea also expressed in A Divided World (1948): the world of nature and the world of man are incompatible. Both humans and animals kill, but animals do it to survive. Only humans kill for different reasons, disguising themselves as instruments of morality and justice. Children are more in tune with the animal world. In Det stora äventyret the boy aligns himself with the animal world, saving an otter that his father has decided to kill. In Sucksdorff's films, children possess virtues that are later erased by society. 

In Det stora äventyret the methods used by Sucksdorff to create extraordinary scenes are exemplified. Some of the animals we observe so closely were wild animals and others were domesticated animals that were part of his personal zoo, which he had brought into the forest. These were free to move or move away but usually remained close to him so that they could freely resume their activities. It is thanks to these circumstances that we can see a remarkable playful sequence in which a fox teases an otter. Sucksdorff always maintained that their actions were never out of character; foxes, he said, are inveterate pranksters. Elsewhere in the film we observe very closely an owl on a branch. Suddenly it flies down to the ground and grabs and devours a dormouse, while the camera follows the action swiftly. It is the kind of shot that others would have waited, hidden, for days without success. Sucksdorff did not have to wait; the owl, a wild owl, was an old friend, whom he often fed, so she had no reason to flee when he approached. Sucksdorff set up and adjusted his camera, and then pulled out of his pocket a dormouse he had brought with him from his zoo. Throwing it at the foot of the tree, he knew what action would follow and was ready to take it back.

Because of these sequences Sucksdorff was accused of a sadistic streak: the cruelty that emerged from his films was often fomented by him. But he defended these actions as natural: he had prepared the scene, but in no way kept the development of the action under control. His method was not unlike that of Flaherty who, as in the walrus sequence in Nanook and the shark sequence in Man of Aran, likewise set the stage for the conflict and then let things take their course. Sucksdorff considered cruelty an essential ingredient in the world he wanted to portray. He detested sentimental depictions of nature, such as those of his Swedish contemporary Gösta Roosling, whose work was equally in vogue [...]». (Erik Barnouw, Documentary. A History of the Non-Fiction Film, Oxford University Press, London/Oxford/New York 1974, in Le avventure della non-fiction, edited by Adriano Aprà, Mostra Internazionale del Nuovo Cinema, Pesaro 1997, pp. 315-316)