Das Mädchen vom Germundshof

This movie is based upon a prizewinning novel by the Swedish author Margit Söderholm and was elected 'film of the year' 1946 in Sweden. It tells the story about the impossible love between the poor folkmusician Jon and Marit, the only daughter of a rich farmer. It all sounds like something we have heard and seen before and it certainly is. But as we know, things can be done in different ways and it also goes for movies. Due to first class direction, excellent and convincing performance by the actors, the magnificent music, and beautiful pictures from the Hälsingland county in Sweden, this film becomes a little masterpiece. I've seen quite a lot of this type of movies and this one could easily be compared with Ophüls' "Liebelei". I give it a 9 and recommend it strongly.

The magic of music is the chief lead of this exquisite masterpiece of rural life in northern Sweden in the early 19th century. According to the parish priest music is the devil's work bringing only curses and damnation, and he thinks he speaks of experience as he attributes the tragic death of the village fiddler with his love in the violent force of the river falls to the fact that he was a fiddler. The vicar takes care of the fiddler's son as a ward, and when the son also starts fiddling, he destroys the violin to avoid further curses. But nothing can withstand the power and magic of music. The boy grows up and finds another fiddle and starts fiddling, bringing joy to the local dancing parties. The music is perhaps the best part of the film. They were an entire team who put this music together, and it is the very pulse of life throughout the film, excellently composed and extremely appropriate to the rustic circumstances. When the two fiddlers play together at the Saturday barn ball, it's the sound of an entire string orchestra, although there are only two basic fiddles, but it doesn't matter - it only enriches the film. There is a great passion love story, the cinematography is magnificent throughout, the Swedish landscape is spellbinding in its irresistible romantic beauty, and the drama is timeless. Nothing binds the film to the early 19th century except the fact that it is clinically free of any modernism. The film is a joy of beauty all through, giving a penetrating insight into the fact that music opens up both the abysses of the human mind and heart and the necessity of exuberant joy and happiness, especially eloquently expressed in the dancing sequences.

Big farmer Germund is planning a wedding for his daughter Marit with the local farmer boy, Mats. Everything seems to be going according to plan. But one day Marit meet with fiddler Jon, a bastard who enchants youth with his violin. Everything is just like the old reliable drawings. Folkmusic, barn dance photos, fights, rough fists groping the heroines bosoms, grand environmental images, the fresh fragrant of scouring-soap and lots of rustic atmosphere. In Mai Zetterling as farmer's daughter the director Gustaf Edgren has found the personified Swedish summer night, as both the seductive twilight and the sober dawn in her blond revelation. And Alf Kjellin as Jon in dark curly wig gives a solid interpretation of the fiddlers temperament and the abrupt shifts between melancholy and frivolity. Both Zetterling and Kjellin later moved on to become well known international film directors. "Driver dagg faller regn" was the first Swedish film to gross more than 1,5 million Swedish krona. It took more than ten years to break that box office record. Ingmar Bergmans "Smultronstället" (Wild strawberries) did in 1957.

The restored copy of this magnificent movie is a wonder : the country landscapes (the hills, the -moody-river ,the forest) are a feast for the eye ; it looks like a legend ,(one of the scenes recalls "Jungfrukällan ",the virgin spring" which Bergman would transfer to the screen in 1959) , blending a repressive religion and superstitions (the river fairy ,the would be maleficent power of the violin which plays devil's music)who made Jon , whose parents elope when his mother was engaged,an outcast , an accursed ,a pariah.

Jon's violin plays a prominent part in the story ,and the sequences of the rustic ball are among the best I have ever seen ; Jon got a raw deal :his parents' sins (if one can call a sin the right to choose the man you love) fall on his head and he's the black sheep of the village where he's considered a protégé of the fairies ,a heathen young man .

Marit is a feminist at a time the word was not invented : it took a lot of guts to say no to an arranged marriage in front of the whole congregation .

Both she and Jon are against the whole world ,and the history of long ago is about to repeat itself.

"Driver dagg faller regn" (after dew, rain)is not a pessimistic work though ; it gets through a message of tolerance ,of forgiveness and of hope :" the river" ,like in Frank Borzage 's eponymous silent film (1928), becomes a character ,and brings doom and redemption.

The score is tremendous, integrating folk music , including one old song performed by Mai Zetterling,who was known in Western Europa.

There are two wealthy landowning families and a marriage between "Marit" (Mai Zetterling) and "Mats" (Ulf Palme) to unite them seems likely. She's an independently minded young woman though and he's a bit of an oaf so it isn't a relationship made in heaven, but with her dad "Germund" (Sten Lindgren) keen on the match it all looks like a fait accompli. Meantime, the local liquor loving fiddler "Glabo-Kalle" (Ivar Hallback) is entertaining the village alongside it's black sheep "Jon" (Alf Kjellin). He is the result of a liaison between a girl that "Germund" once loved and a travelling musician - and so whilst tolerated, he is largely shunned. Guess what? Yep. It's after a drunken party as she walks home that he has to rescue her from the unwarranted attentions of a group of villagers and that's the start of an affaire de coeur that challenges attitudes and tests relationships and loyalties as this close knit community comes to terms with it's own equivalent of devilishness. This film provides quite an exposing social commentary on just how women were loved, certainly, but still traded as commodities and dynasty builders whilst it also shines a light on the prevailing double standards of a Christianity that neither forgives nor forgets. Zetterling is on good form and there is a quite an effectively smouldering chemistry between her and the sort of Bogarde-esque Kjellin. There is a lesson to be learned here for many who incline to visit the sins of the predecessors on their blameless offspring and there is also some stunning photography all centred around a waterfall that was there for centuries before mankind sullied it's waters, and which will be there for centuries afterwards, too.