Cold tracks (Kalde spor) is both written and directed by Arne Skouen, which is one of the most important Norwegian filmmakers. Being his eleventh film, he like no other has defined Norwegian films in the decades after the second world war. Arne Skouen said in a 1989 TV-documentary that he thought maybe this was his best film.
A mysterious man hires a taxi drives up to the remote mountains in cold winter, but won't tell the taxi driver who he is, or where he'll go by ski, like the traditions are when you go mountain hiking. At last he says that he can tell the local police he's here again. Then we see him struggle across the mountain side, as a storm is brewing. Before he left the taxi driver, he was told about the 12 youngsters which fell off a cliff to the sure death, and that their ghosts still hunts people up here.
No music, just the sound of skis across the wind ridden snow, is setting the tone, then the sound of a lonely sad bird, then a little sound which might be music, before it tones out again, as the man finds an old unused cabin, before he again hears the lone bird sounding like an owl. Then the sound of many skiers before we see them all approaching him in the cabin. The group of skiers are awaited.
He tells them: Sleep all you can. We are out for a long trip. I think they suspect us using this route, he says, before they all go to sleep.
The morning after, the man is up before the rest, and think they are all discovered. A group of skiers are up on the hill there far away. 12 of them. But they don't approach. They face away, and fade out to the other side of the hill, before the storm approaches with a sudden fear.
What a tone the film sets off. It's mysterious, beautiful, scary, cold and just plain awesome. This is one of Skouen's masterpieces. The man, played by Toralv Maurstad, is a troubled man. More I don't think should be told, before you decide to enjoy the film.
Not at all getting the recognition it deserves, this film contains film work which is outstanding, and the master makes his actors shine. It's both real and like poetry. The use of sounds, the mountain light, the shadows, the cold is perfect for snow makes a film which is impossible to forget. The ensemble does an outstanding job. Not only Toralv Maurstad, but Henny Moan, Alf Malland, Rgnhild Hald, Sverre Holm, Egil Lorck, Lasse Næss and Siv Skjønberg are all contributing to the film as a story of consciousness and redemption after a tragedy, and the need for feeling guilt, or at least placing it.
This movie is made available in 2024 when it was released on interregional (region-free) Blu-Ray Disk by Norwegian Film Classics as the fifth release in a new series with classics, NFK0018, with subtitles in English, and is supposed to be held in stock for film lovers.
