It is a damning indictment of the society during which we stay when a post-apocalyptic world such because the one portrayed in Tortoise in a Nutshell and Norway’s Figurteatret i Nordland’s Ragnarok isn’t that tough to think about: the scenario in Gaza, local weather change, deforestation, air pollution, starvation, make all of it depressingly acquainted.
Taking inspiration from the catastrophic Norse finish of days fable, we come to the story with our younger heroes (a brother and sister), three years on and knee-deep in an finish of the world state of affairs. Odin’s ravens Hugin and Munin talk with our younger heroine and the Celtic White Stag looms across the devastated metropolis. The solar sits mounted and unmoving within the sky, winter the one season.
Abandoning the few household ties they’ve left, the siblings journey away from this dystopian world within the hope of discovering a future. They battle by the lawless streets, difficult climate, countless plains, lakes, forests and wolves, attempting to keep away from the multitude of risks round.
It is a narrative epic in ambition however miniature in scale. The stage populated with dozens of tiny, hand-crafted clay figures. The metropolis constructed by the performers earlier than our eyes. Hand-held stay digicam work is projected on to a fantastic round display above the stage, sitting alongside pre-recorded dialogue and a stay music soundtrack.
Ragnarok is an formidable enterprise and this ambition and the artistry with which it’s executed are to be lauded however it’s not with out fault. It is at occasions not a simple watch. There isn’t any shift in tempo or tone and the oppressiveness of soundtrack wears. The relentless darkness and despair, the by no means assuaging sense of impending doom begin to take their toll on the viewer. While it goals to supply a constructive message on the survival of the human spirit, the glimmer of hope on the finish too little, too late, too fleeting.
Epic, formidable, lovely, however laborious to observe.
