As a bitter winter beats down on a rural Estonian village, the impoverished peasantry barter and steal from one another’s paltry belongings to survive. A story of unrequited love develops between villagers Liina, Hans, and the German baroness of the nearby castle, who go to great lengths to ensure their feelings are reciprocated. While the love triangle rests at the centre of the film, even more enchanting are its peripheral stories: animist rituals are performed; the local pastor is afflicted by voodoo; the Devil is deceived by wily villagers; and the village is visited by a personified Plague. 

Cinematographer Mart Taniel captures disquieting and haunting landscapes, shooting in high-contrast black and white, and a wide array of formats, including infrared cameras that render green as white, which allowed production to occur in the summer. November combines practical and visual effects: the folkloric kratt creatures—scarecrow-like automatons made of household tools—were physically animated with strings and levers. In a clever bit of superimposition in the style of Escher’s Three Worlds, Taniel also imagines a dreamlike vision of a gondola on a lake, the surface of the water melding into the wintry sky of the forest.