Scandinavian Film Fest 2024 Review - The Riot

Images courtesy of The Scandinavian Film Festival.

Nils Gaup’s 2022 film Sulis 1907 premiered in Norway but has only recently come to Australia, under the new name The Riot, as part of the Scandinavian Film Festival. The film is based on the real historical event, the 1907 miners’ uprising in Stuljema, Norway. This uprising led to the creation of one of Norway's biggest workers unions. We follow Konrad Nilsson as he begins work at the mines and eventually finds himself stuck between his fellow workers and the oppressive mine boss Wennstrøm, as he struggles for control over the mines and the miners fight for their own dignity.

The film comports itself as an epic historical drama depicting an inspirational battle against oppression. Disappointingly it is neither epic nor particularly inspiring. The most interesting part of the film is, to be frank, just the real life history it's doing a rather lacklustre job of depicting. 

The copper mines in Stuljema, where the film takes place, were some of the most brutal in the world. The Stuljema Mine Company pushed the miners to breaking point, working them in the freezing cold, 16 to a room, with only the company shop to spend their paychecks in. They were also payed by the amount of ore they could dig up, rather than by the hour, meaning that there was a possibility the miners could work for hours and earn nothing. When numbered tags for every miner, known as “slave tags” were introduced, it proved too much for the workers and they finally decided to organise a union to fight back against the bosses. This is where The Riot ends, at the decision to form this union. 

This means that possibly the most interesting and cinematic aspect of this story is omitted from the film:the meeting of over 1,000 miners on the ice of the frozen lake Langvassisen. It was on this ice that the miners unanimously voted to create their union and begin their fight back against the bosses of the Stuljema Mine Company. One can imagine epic sweeping drone shots of all these miners standing out on the frozen expanse of the Langvassisen, and how much they would elevate the film they appeared in, but sadly this is not the film. The Riot is instead shot incredibly basically, punctuated by  the occasional ultra wide shot of a misty mountain or snowy forest to remind us we’re in Norway. 

The writing is similarly uninspiring with an unnecessary focus on the personal drama of the main character Konrad, including an incongruent and underdeveloped romance with one of the maids in the boss’s home. This is meant to be a story about workers' fight for dignity and all the film's energy should go towards that. The romance and other personal drama of this one character does nothing but distract. 

The events that took place in the Stuljema mines in 1907 are as inspiring as they are fascinating; they deserve a great film adaptation, The Riot is not this. 

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The Riot is screening as part of the 2024 Scandinavian Film Festival. The Melbourne festival ran from the 19th of July-7th of August. For more info, click here.