Is The Troll Hunter The Most Important Film Of Our Time? (Short Answer: Yes)

That looked crazy.

I have just seen the movie with my two sons (I’m Norwegian), and it was absolutely fantastic!

Unfortunately, a lot of the cultural and folklore references will be lost to foreign viewers (like the reference to Three Billy Goats Gruff, just to mention one out of countless others). In pre-scientific times (and pre-Christian times) the human need to explain and understand our surrounding world was just as strong as it is in our modern era.
Norway was covered by a thick ice sheet during the last ice-age, and that ice sheet has marked much of our landscape and fjords. A lot of topographical features, like a plain strewn with gigantic stone boulders left by melting glaciers, would have been impossible to explain 1500 years ago. Human have always felt small, insignificant and vulnerable when faced with mother natures massive forces, and have always sought explanations in the supernatural and intangible.

When you walk through Norways mountainous landscape, you will often see terrain features (like a cliff wall or a silhouetted mountain) that resembles a face or a beeing of gigantic proportions. This is similar to seeing a cloud in the sky that resembles a face or an animal.
Pre-historic Norwegians interpreted this as massive creatures that had turned to stone. The existence of such beeings would also explain how massive rock boulders and other unexplainable topographical features had come about.
As humans are drawn to mysticism (hence all the worlds religions, new age believes, etc) Trolls found a natural place in Norwegian (and Scandinavian folklore) even far into the more disciplined Chirstian ages.

In the mid 18th hundreds, Asbjoernsen & Moe released a collection of Norwegian folklore and fairytales they had collected through travelling across the country and writing down stories that had been verbally passed from generation to generation. In these fairytales (which often contain some moral wisdom and guidance), Trolls and other creatures are deeply interwoven in the fabric of the folklore.

A&M’s collection of fairytales and stories became hugely popular, and they were later illustrated by Theodore S Kittelsen. His fantastic illustrations have created the master image of what Trolls and other supernatural creatures look like, for most Norwegians.

In the movie “The Troll Hunter”, most of the creatures are carbon copies of this imagery. There also a well of subtile references to national folklore that are absolutely hillarious for a Norwegian. That’s why most Norwegian critics rightfully has characterized the movie as a thriller/comedy. I think the humoristic aspect will be lost to an international audience, which is really sad because it’s absolutely brilliantly made and lifts the film tremendously.

Having said that, the film contains enough thrills and beautiful CGI to make it worthwhile to see for any type of audience. The different sceneries of Norways highlands and wooden lowlands, also creates a perfect backdrop for the folklore.

I highly recommend this movie regardless of your native origin, as an introduction to Norwegian folklore. It’s a pity most of will miss out on the cultural references and the subtile humor, but it’s quite enjoyable anayway.

(and having read a lot of the english reviews, I see there’s a established misconception that the Trolls are hidden away in the northern part of the country. This is wrong. All of the action takes place in the southern part (center of Norway). Norway is a mountainous country, and most of the population is situated along the the coastline. Most inland parts of Norway is uninhabitable high ground (like the area where the rabies infected “Jotne” towards the end of the movie roams). This is in the middle of the southern part of Norway where our country is at its widest).