Reviews (3)

Great Acting, But Incomplete
As usual, Max Von Sydow is excellent in his role of the great Nobel Laureate and Norwegian novelist, Knut Hamsun.

To be sure, I would've liked to see the director and producer delve back deeper into Hamsun's history. I think his formative years and time in America would have been more than worthwhile to chronicle. Hamsun was an incredibly lucid and accomplished author and one of the more compelling figures of the 20th Century. The totality of his life is a lesson in perserverance, rugged individualism, and originality. A more complete representation of his life is required to give viewers what they deserve.

At Last!
As a fan and scholar of Hamsun, I was overjoyed when I finally managed to see this film. It does not disappoint in any way. The subject matter is, naturally, controversial but the film gracefully confronts the issue of the Hamsuns' Nazism and gives humanity to it. This is the best Von Sydow performance I have ever seen, helped by a precision piece of scripting. For those who are not familiar with Hamsun the film will not have the same power but will stand very strongly as a tragedy. The story does concern Nazism and literature, but its main focus is the estrangement and reconciliation of two powerful personalities. As a love story, it is impeccable.

Power & Politics vs. Art & Love
Max Von Südow is a fabulous Knut Hamsun in this film about the life of the famous Norwegian writer. The charismatic Danish actress Ghita Nørby plays his manipulative wife.

Without truly knowing what he is getting into Knut Hamsun is attracted to the teachings of a certain man by the name of Adolf Hitler. Because the wife is the one truly devoted to the Fuehrer, Hamsun struggles between what she is trying to convince him is the true nature of Nazism and what he learns from other sources (not to mention from his encounter with Hitler himself, who wants Hamsun as a propaganda tool for the Nazi cause).

Obviously, the film is controversial. How much did Knut Hamsun actually know about the atrocities committed by the Nazis and how much was he lulled into it all by his wife?

The relationship between the arts and politics is made explicit and explored. How and why we chose and practise our ideologies is frightening and makes you wonder about your own convictions.

However, the film is so much more than this and is a definite must for anyone who likes to question themselves, society and the notion of history. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

haunting and beautiful and painful
This film is so difficult to watch, but its brilliance is still exceptional. Helma Sander-Brahms should be world famous simply for this movie. I wish more of her films were available in the United States. In this film, the use of old documentary footage of post-war Germany combined with Sander-Brahms' own exquisite images is breathtaking. The film is a painful study of the devastation and heartbreak that the children of post-war Germany had to face in the wake of World War II; an entire generation coming to terms with the massive genocide that their parent's generation had participated in. Sander-Brahms pulls the viewer into her own personal and extremely sad story. She is brave and unforgiving and that is what makes her film so haunting.

Haunted memories
I saw this film 18 years ago, and it still haunts my memories. The film is itself about the way post-war Germany has been haunted by the memories of its Nazi and World War Two past. It follows the story of a mother and her daughter as they struggle through the last years of the war and the immediate post-war years. The mother is raped by a Russian soldiers among bombed-out buildings and ends up carrying her small daughter on her back through miles of ravaged countryside. They struggle on to achieve a fairly comfortable new existence after having been refugees. Then the father returns and turns out to be a patriarchal tyrant. The most haunting scene is the final one in which the little girl stands outside the locked bathroom and knocks, calling out 'Mama, Mama' while her mother is inside, attempting to commit suicide. I won't tell you what happens after that: see this film. ... Read more