The town of Sodankylä isn’t much to look at. A few low-slung cinderblock buildings add up to two hotels, three markets, four restaurants, and several bars. There are no log cabins or walruses. I came to Lapland expecting polar exotica, but it looks a lot like any small town in Michigan or Wisconsin, except this town of of 8,800 never gets dark in the summertime and it hosts one of the world’s most unique festivals.

At two in the morning, people holler and grope along the streets while a cover band cranks out a relentless playlist that leans heavily on Billy Idol, Def Leppard, and Metallica. It’s typical Saturday night bedlam except somebody forgot to turn out the lights. A girl vomits into the bushes while her friends cheer; a man tips over and doesn’t get up. Rock to never neverland…

This quirk of latitude will shred your equilibrium if you’re not careful. Nearly one quarter of Finland sits above the Arctic Circle where it experiences several weeks of constant daylight in the summertime (also known as Black Sun). This strange play between light and dark makes Lapland an excellent place for a film festival; nothing feels finer than escaping the 3am daylight to sit in a darkened room.

On the first day of the Midnight Sun Film Festival, I saw Helsinki Forever, a terrific montage by Peter von Bagh (the festival’s artistic director), followed by a quick nap and then a noisy documentary about All Tomorrow’s Parties at 3:15am. The following day, there was Times and Winds, a stern Turkish film about the tragedy of childhood, and Grill Point, a nimble comedy about a love triangle in Frankfurt that features a parakeet named Hans-Peter.

Despite my best efforts, I dozed off in the middle of each film — my exhaustion was no match for any director. The festival also honored John Boorman by screening Point Blank (not Point Break), Excalibur, The Emerald Forest, and Deliverance (which I imagine takes on a strange new resonance in remote Sodankylä). For better and worse, the film programming was across the board and I wonder if the idea of a cohesive vision is sacrificed to the novelty of watching a movie — any movie — in a tent in Lapland.

Regardless, my weekend in Lapland delivered on its promise: I ate reindeer pizza, watched some unexpected films, lost track of time and space, saw a thrilling performance by a cross-dressing no-wave band, played a freakish amount of backgammon with Oliver Blank, and watched pine trees and rivers streak past my window on the 13-hour train ride back to Helsinki.

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Ratatat – Lapland
from Ratatat. XL Recordings, 2004

My view of the Turkish film about goat herders, thanks to a woman with frighteningly perfect posture.