Now the films have been restored
CHRONICLE. Almost a million Swedes fled the misery in Sweden to the United States from 1850 onwards.
Jan Troell’s films “The Immigrants” and “The Settlers” have shaped our image of that time.
Now they are highly relevant again – for several reasons.
“I don’t hold back anymore.”
I would have bathed in coins if I got a penny every time someone had a spinal reaction with Ullmann’s life “The immigrants” line when it came up that I’m from Småland.
It is one of the most quoted in Swedish film history, but the publisher’s author Vilhelm Moberg was first determined that Ullmann, Max von Sydow and the others would speak national Swedish. The director Jan Troell thankfully managed to convince him about the Småland.
His film adaptation became (not only because of that) also one of the best films ever made.
“Utvandrarna” and the sequel “Settlers” were seen by hundreds of thousands of Swedes in cinemas, and the former was nominated for Oscars for best foreign film, best film, best director, best actress and best screenplay. Won Golden Globes and Gold Beetles.
Newly restored 4K top condition
Right now the exhibition “I am a camera – Jan Troell and the photograph” is taking place at Trelleborg’s museum, where, among other things, previously unpublished photographs from the recordings are shown, and this weekend the film festival Il Cinema Ritrovato starts in Bologna, where the films are shown in the newly restored 4K top condition produced by the Film Institute earlier this year. This autumn, Turteatern’s five-hour long performance “Utvandrarna 1.0” has its new premiere.
Both the novel and the films are sadly highly topical for more reasons than that, and that the publisher ended up in a Swedish cultural canon initiated by SD is, as often mentioned and which deserves to be mentioned again, deeply ironic.
The depictions of Kristina’s, Karl Oskar’s and their children’s hard lives tell both about Swedish history and about emigration and immigration in our time.
They have shaped our entire image of the period from around 1850 onwards when almost a million of the Swedish population, due to poverty, starvation, difficulties in practicing their religion or other things, saved money for the tickets, packed as much as they could and set off on a long and difficult journey to the USA.
There they sought out other Swedes, planted Swedish trees, had difficulty with the language and a new culture. Struggled, and maybe didn’t have it as easy as they thought. Missed home.
Imprinted under the skin
When you see the films, von Sydow’s, Ullmann’s, Monica Zetterlundpp. and Eddie Axberg’s faces imprinted under the skin, and the hardships, sorrows and loves of those they play moved into the heart. You can hardly tell.
See or re-see them today!
If you are not lucky enough to live near a cinema that has booked screenings of the remastered versions this summer, the films can be rented on most streaming services.
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