A New Kind of Wilderness screens at the Adelaide Film Festival on 26 & 29 October 2024.
“This place has everything” – Falk
“Except pet whales.” – Ulv
Maria Vatne wrote on her blog WILD + FREE “…we are facing this new kind of wilderness: The bushy road of healing. Cutting through fear and chaos, we are finding our way, day by day, hour by hour. Falling and rising again. Continuously learning how to trust. Doing inner work, releasing, digging deep.” This entry was in October 2018. She passed away from cancer in 2019. What Maria left behind was an archive of stunning photography chronicling the ‘idyllic’ mostly off the grid lives of her family consisting of her British husband, Nik Payne, her daughter Ronja, and the three children she shared with Nik: Freja, Falk, and Ulv (Wolfie) on their farm in Norway. Director Silje Evensmo Jacobsen had initially been attracted to Maria’s images and life statement – to live as independently as possible, to love and respect nature, and to take as little from the earth as they could. “To strive for self sufficiency and freedom.”
Nik and Maria insisted the three younger children would be homeschooled (Ronja attended what Freja deemed ‘the prison’) but even before Maria’s death they were having trouble balancing the demands of educating children aged nine and below, running the farm, and keeping a steady income flowing. When she passed away the inevitable happened; Nik put the farm on the market and major life adjustments were underway as Freja, Falk, and Ulv moved to a still rural part of Norway, but one where they were part of a very ‘slow’ rat race.
Falk and Ulv are gorgeous children and their youth (Falk is six and Ulv is three when Maria passes) spares them some of the turbulence felt by soon to be ten-year-old Freja, and teenaged Ronja. Ronja left the farm immediately after Maria’s death as she felt she didn’t ‘belong there without Maria’. She loves her half siblings, especially Freja, but can’t connect with them. She has moved to a smaller city and lives with her father and seemingly quickly adapted to that lifestyle, but she is isolated and lonely.
Freja is the most interesting of the children. Old enough to understand what she is losing and has already lost, hers is the point of view that is most engaging. She was essentially born into Nik and Maria’s utopian ideas of nomadic freedom and connectedness with the planet. The only unit or society she knew well was one provided exclusively by Maria and Nik. Her pain is sharp, but she is tender, especially with her daddy. While Nik wonders if he is potentially ruining his children’s futures, she is wondering how to care for Nik and remain emotionally solid.
Jacobsen’s documentary is filmed over a two to three year period where the family transition from their small self-sustained existence to a more standard social life (although it isn’t as if they are living in Oslo, they remain in the Bø area). At first Freja rejects school and has trouble making friends, but over time she makes her own decisions which are her shaping her future. Nik feels he has no reason to stay in Norway now Maria is gone and wants to return to England, but Freja reminds him she is Norwegian, so too her sister and brothers. Uprooting her once again would be more than she could deal with.
The new kind of wilderness that the family face is two-fold. How do they move into a less ‘alternative living’ environment, and how do they find themselves after the person who kept them all together has gone? The wilderness is healing, finding ‘home’, and embracing their own identities.
Jacobsen’s access to Maria’s photographs and videos of her family, as well as the words she wrote on her blog help to form a picture of who she was and what kind of world she wanted for her family. Her absence in Ronja, Freja, and Nik’s lives is immense, as if they lost their north star. Her dream of self-sufficiency is one that is gloriously captured via her work and the warmth of the dynamic between Nik and the ‘three monkeys” – but the question the documentary subtly raises is if it was ever going to work.
Ronja’s immediate exit suggests that when young adulthood, or adulthood is the reality for the family, the things Maria and Nik wanted aren’t necessarily going to be what their children want. Ronja’s feels guilt for not being there because it is too painful, but also her life plans aren’t for growing her own food or ‘off-grid’ living.
The same issue is answered by Freja’s decisions. She never stops adoring her family for a moment, she never stops loving Nik or Maria (and misses Maria profoundly) but her adjustment to school, aided by some very attentive teachers, is only minimally rocky. Being a part of a community of her peers is far from the ‘prison’ she imagined.
Silje Evensmo Jacobsen’s documentary can appear a touch staged at times – why is Freja suddenly asking Nik “Why aren’t we like other families?” Why does she leave out the fact Maria and Nik had decided they needed to sell the farm earlier on because they couldn’t afford the upkeep? As beautifully and tenderly as A New Kind of Wilderness is shot and presented, Jacobsen makes deliberate choices to suggest that Maria and Nik’s ideal “back to nature” lifestyle and self-contained child raising, and education was only curtailed because of Maria’s death.
The Vatne-Payne family (immensely photogenic) do suffer as their lives change, and their grief is gently and empathetically observed by Jacobsen. Yet they also mostly find their footing. The person most likely to remain bound by a promise is Nik, but he reaches some measure of equanimity as he realises that the real promise is to care for his children and allow them to develop their minds.
A New Kind of Wilderness is essentially about the connection to nature. Nature is both eternal and unpredictable. Death is inevitable and change is inevitable. Growth comes from respect, care, and nourishment. Maria and Nik imagined gaining freedom by moving away from the modern world and paying attention to the fertile and lovely earth beneath them and passing this philosophy to their children. No matter what Ronja, Freja, Falk, and Ulv choose to do with their futures, they are nature’s children, and they know how to love and grow through the seasons of life facing the varying wildernesses of being. A New Kind of Wilderness is a documentary suffused with magic, tragedy, and gaining wisdom both old and new.
Director: Silje Evensmo Jacobsen
Writer: Silje Evensmo Jacobsen
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