This 1950 black and white historical educational film directed by Lauritz Faulk takes a personal narrative approach to depicting the inception and construction of Norway’s Aura hydropower plant, located in Sunndalsøra in Sunndal Municipality, Møre and Romsdal County, partially extending into the municipality of Lesja (TRT:18:58).
Opening titles, “A.F. Films Inc.” and “Norwegian Documentary Film Presents: Breakthrough” and (0:09). A horse-drawn cart plods down a mountain road. The feet of a teenage boy dangle off the back of the cart. A closeup of the teenager, who wears a coat and cap (0:47). Towering, craggy mountaintops. Whitewater rapids. A waterfall (1:03). The boy helps his family horse at a difficult crossing (1:27). Sundalls Fjord. An electrical pole and log cabins under construction (1:47). The mother of the family approaches two elderly women. A ship unloads cargo at a harbor (2:10). The family approaches a farmhouse (2:41). A young girl with pigtails greets the boy. The pair run through rural fields to a darkened tavern. Rustic men play cards and wrestle near a campfire (3:05). The father is found working on a snowy mountainside. A procession of laborers. Explosions (4:02). The children find and push a mine cart on rail tracks. A train blows a steam whistle and pushes the cart away (4:51). Snowy mountains. A map shows a sequence of mountain lakes and streams (5:28). Cable car tracks extend into the horizon. A long line of workers wait outside an office. One man throws a rock through the office’s window. The unified crowd approaches threateningly (5:56). The workers of Aura march under a banner in a union parade, led by a drummer and an accordionist (6:21). An outdoor union meeting. A man with a hat and mustache speaks at a podium (6:43). Dynamite blasting. A hand lights a fuse. A switch is flipped, and gears grind to a halt (7:22). After World War I, the young boy is depicted as a young working man, plying the trade of a blacksmith (7:41). He graduates to working in the tunnels. Men work by hand with hammers and chisels. Narration mentions the Spanish Flu of 1919. Bodies are carried away on stretchers (8:03). A lineup of dejected single men are denied work at the site office (8:58). Our hero takes a contemplative stroll. An idle crane reflected in water. An unused steam engine (9:40). Fishing in a mountain stream. His female companion washes laundry (10:41). A melting snowdrift forms a stream, a waterfall, a raging river that powers a small water wheel (11:30). Floating tools represent a flood season (12:49). An engineer at a drafting table shows a construction plan to a group of men (13:24). A man in Nazi uniform takes over. Two idle men return to work after seeing a Nazi patrolman (13:41). Our hero sits at a desk in a jail, accused of sabotage. Later, with the Nazis gone, he surveys the abandoned work site (14:06). Montage of work resuming: Cranes, machines, cargo from across Europe (14:41). Drilling in the tunnels. Minecarts haul away rubble during excavation. Dump trucks (15:10). A bus unloads a team of men, who walk to rural homes (15:55). Miners wearing hardhats with headlamps (16:12). Two men ride a suspended cable car. A funicular carries lumber (16:30). A panorama shows that the tunnel is inside a mountain and the landscape is not disrupted (17:08). A large turbine is lifted and mounted. Inside the hydroelectric plant (17:22). Our star couple, now aged, look out on a montage of electrical towers (18:09).
The Aura power station went into operation in 1953 as the first in Statkraft to be built inside a mountain. It forms the Lake Aursjøen reservoir from tributary lakes Holbuvatnet and Reinsvatn.
This film, originally titled, “Aura, Strom aus dem Norden” or “Aura, Electricity from the North,” was written and produced by Per Bogersen, and photographed by Per G. Johnson, with music by Gunnar Sonstevold and E.F. Brein. It was edited by Bendt Sommerschield and narrated by Axel Amlie.
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