Welcome to Estonia, Where Even the Plague Has Personality
There are strange movies, and then there’s November, a black-and-white Estonian fever dream that looks like it was directed by Andrei Tarkovsky after drinking moonshine with the Brothers Grimm. Written and directed by Rainer Sarnet, based on Andrus Kivirähk’s cult novel Rehepapp ehk November, it’s the kind of film that makes you laugh, sigh, and wonder if your soul just got bartered to the Devil in exchange for a bucket of turnips.
Set in a 19th-century Estonian village where the economy runs on witchcraft, theft, and creative loopholes in contracts with Satan, November is a deliriously bleak and beautiful fairy tale. It’s part horror, part comedy, part romance, and entirely insane — and somehow, it works. It’s Frankenstein by way of The Little Mermaid, if the mermaid were a werewolf and everyone smelled faintly of cabbage and sin.
The Village of the Damned (and the Petty)
The villagers of November are poor, hungry, and terminally clever. They’ll sell their souls to the Devil, then trick him out of the deal by signing his contracts in black currant juice instead of blood. They steal cows, bread, and each other’s dignity with the same enthusiasm. The devil himself — played by Jaan Tooming with the weary air of an overworked civil servant — shows up at crossroads like a demonic notary public, only to be repeatedly scammed by farmers who think they’re the smartest sinners in Hell’s waiting room.
These peasants are what happens when capitalism meets paganism and decides to elope. They want prosperity, but without consequences. They want life, but not death. And they’ll put pants on their heads if it means fooling the Plague. (Yes, literally — the villagers disguise themselves with trousers to trick Death into thinking they have two rear ends. It’s a real scene, and it’s glorious.)
It’s the first film I’ve ever seen where the Black Death gets outwitted by fashion choices.
The Romance That Shouldn’t Work but Absolutely Does
At the heart of this chaos are two tragic romantics: Liina (Rea Lest-Liik), a farmer’s daughter and occasional werewolf, and Hans (Jörgen Liik), a dreamy fool with the emotional intelligence of wet bark. Liina loves Hans. Hans loves the Baroness, a somnambulant noblewoman who’s so ethereal she barely qualifies as conscious.
It’s a love triangle drawn in blood, mud, and unrequited longing. Liina would kill for Hans — literally, the witch gives her an arrow to do just that — but she can’t bring herself to murder the woman he adores. Hans, meanwhile, builds a soul-powered robot (a kratt, in Estonian folklore) to win over the Baroness, which is roughly the 19th-century Baltic version of sending a thirsty DM.
What’s astonishing is how funny this all is. You expect gothic tragedy, and you get it — but you also get sly humor, deadpan absurdity, and moments of genuine sweetness. It’s a movie where despair and farce coexist, like Wuthering Heights performed by a drunk theater troupe during a power outage.
The Kratt: Estonia’s Weirdest Invention
The kratt deserves its own spin-off. Imagine Frankenstein’s monster made from farm tools, sticks, and a cow skull, powered by a stolen soul and the promise of theft. It’s part slave, part pet, and all chaos. When it’s not stealing livestock, it’s sulking existentially about its purpose, like a sentient rake having a midlife crisis.
Hans builds his kratt out of snow — because, why not — and tries to trick the Devil again with the currant juice scam. The Devil, finally fed up, takes Hans’s soul anyway. It’s the sort of cosmic justice that feels both tragic and oddly bureaucratic.
The kratt becomes the film’s weird moral compass. It tells Hans about love and eternity, and when it melts, it leaves behind a puddle and a ring — because even demons understand symbolism. November has no interest in being subtle, but it’s so earnest in its weirdness that you can’t help but admire it.
A Gothic Comedy About Starvation, Souls, and Snow
Rainer Sarnet’s direction is a masterclass in beautiful misery. Every frame looks like a haunted photograph dug up from a folklore museum. The cinematography by Mart Taniel deserves sainthood — black and white so crisp you can feel the frostbite. The forests loom like gods. The houses creak like confessionals. Even mud looks poetic, which is no small miracle.
But it’s not just style. There’s substance under all that frost. November is a story about survival — physical, emotional, and spiritual — in a world where every breath is a negotiation with forces beyond comprehension. It’s a tale of peasants cheating death because poverty is scarier than hellfire. It’s also a love story between fools, bound by longing and doomed by delusion.
Yet, amid the death, deceit, and devils, there’s an unexpected tenderness. When Liina and Hans meet at night in the forest — she disguised in the Baroness’s gown, he too lovesick to notice — the moment is haunting and hilarious. Two idiots, drenched in rain, mistaking desire for destiny. The village elder watches them from afar and mutters, “Two fools.” He’s not wrong.
When the Devil Is the Only Adult in the Room
It’s telling that the Devil in November comes off as the most reasonable character. He shows up punctually, keeps track of contracts, and has to deal with peasants constantly trying to con him with fruit juice and goat bones. By the film’s end, you almost sympathize with him. He’s not evil — just exasperated, like an accountant in Hell’s HR department.
Even the Plague, personified as a woman, then a goat, then a pig, isn’t malevolent. She’s just doing her job. She kills because that’s what she’s meant to do. The villagers treat her like an inconvenience, like a tax auditor who won’t stop coming around. There’s a dark comedy in watching humanity try to outsmart cosmic forces with folk hacks and barnyard costumes.
Folk Horror Meets Absurdist Poetry
It’s hard to describe November without sounding like you’ve inhaled too much chimney smoke. It’s a film where ghosts casually wander around offering advice, the dead visit the living for dinner, and the line between faith and fraud is as thin as a chicken bone. It’s horror without jump scares, comedy without punchlines, and romance without hope.
And yet, it’s utterly alive. Every element — the eerie score, the strange folklore, the grotesque humor — comes together like a pagan symphony. It’s The Witch if The Witch had a sense of humor and an occasional accordion.
The ending is pure gothic poetry. Hans dies because he literally owes the Devil his soul. Liina drowns herself, reuniting with Hans under the water, their love finally equal in death. The villagers, true to form, loot their corpses for treasure. It’s morbid, beautiful, and weirdly funny — like death itself telling a joke.
The Beauty of Being Ridiculous
That’s the magic of November: it dares to be ridiculous and profound at the same time. It’s a movie that believes life is absurd, that love is stupid, and that humanity’s greatest talent is finding new ways to bargain with fate. And yet, it treats that absurdity with awe.
Rea Lest-Liik gives Liina the ferocity of a fairy-tale heroine who refuses to be forgotten. Jörgen Liik’s Hans is the perfect tragic himbo — clueless, earnest, and doomed. Together, they’re what Romeo and Juliet would be if Shakespeare had a drinking problem and a thing for folklore.
Final Verdict: Frostbite for the Soul (in a Good Way)
November is a masterpiece of madness — a black-and-white fever dream about love, greed, and goat-related theology. It’s hilarious, heartbreaking, and haunting in equal measure.
It’s a reminder that folklore isn’t about escapism — it’s about facing the ugly, stupid truth of being human and laughing at it anyway.
Rating: 10 out of 10 currant-juice contracts.
Because sometimes the Devil deserves a good laugh — and November gives him one.
