Earth´s Golden Playground

As is well known, realism depends on detail that can however be unimportant for the narrative. Because Andreas Horvath´s EARTH´S GOLDEN PLAYGROUND involves taking a realistic look at the center of the legendary 1896 gold rush — the area around Dawson City, where the Klondike and Yukon rivers meet in Northern Canada — the film’s full of such details: the snow-covered leafy forest past which two men whiz on snowmobiles at its beginning; the painting on the wall of Dawson City´s Westminster Hotel, which shows a family of red deer in a snowy landscape; the Bible lying next to a roll of toilet paper and the still life in the casino ad; the cut onion, canned milk and matchbox in the room of the elderly prospector, who came to Yukon Territory to search for gold and loves wild women and whiskey. The narrative function of these details is that they don’t possess a direct function at all, instead pointing to something real that’s necessarily missed by every narrative, regardless of how realistic. On the other hand, by firmly rooting the story in reality, the details in EARTH´S GOLDEN PLAYGROUND enlarge the amount of latitude in a realistic portrayal: They make it possible for Horvath to latch onto the gold-rush myths of adventure and settlement, human conquest of magnificent nature, entrepreneurship and the pursuit of happiness in the form of mineral resources. All this is done without falling for the myth. One of ways the film guards against reproducing it, in addition to the portrayal of industrial gold mining, is the shot of a pair of well-worn hiking boots that have as much to say about their wearer as he does himself. (Vrääth Öhner) Since the frist Gold Rush in the late 1890s, the Yukon, with its legendary Klondike gold fields, has been a remote land shrouded in mystery. In times of economic instability, the high price of gold makes the search for the precious metal all the more attractive. Individual miners compete to find the precious metal still believed to lie hidden underground. (prod.note) Early in Andreas Horvath’s Earth’s Golden Playground, a look at modern-day prospectors in the Yukon territory of Canada, an underground shot at a gold dig suggests an ultra-lo-fi variation on the opening of “There Will Be Blood.” But Mr. Horvath’s procedural, increasingly dry documentary takes the “rush” out of “gold rush.” Mr. Horvath shadows two diggers in Dawson City, a desolate, ramshackle town that was home to the Klondike gold rush of the 1890s, chronicled by the writer Jack London. One man who lives in a shack and resembles a spiritless Tommy Lee Jones jackhammers and shovels away at his stake in the wilderness; a woeful shot at home shows a plastic baggie of documents labeled “child support.” His wealthier counterpart uses excavator machines and workers to move tons of earth in search of gold flecks. We also learn about corporate interests that control untold acres. Prospecting is doggedly shown to be a trying and somewhat antiquated process. While fiction films often tell the tale of a wildcat town’s boom and bust in about an hour, Mr. Horvath lingers over lonely digging, maps, more digging and nature montages. Mr. Horvath, an Austrian director, is a one-man band on this film, responsible for camerawork, editing and a Wagner-inspired soundtrack that periodically, and somewhat absurdly, ramps up. The prospector with the big operation actually lives in the Philippines, with an attractive younger companion. That suggests there’s still gold in those hills, but Mr. Horvath also shows they are not a playground for all comers. (Nicolas Rapold, In: THE NEW YORK TIMES) Trailer online youtube