Zandys Braut

Gene Hackman was so prolific that even though he has retired from acting for over a decade. You can still find a new performance from him even if it is some old, obscure film.

This is a bleak, dark but vacant Scandi-drama decades before the term came in vogue with crime mysteries.

Gene Hackman is Zandy, a rugged rancher in the Big Sur. This is an isolated and backward community. A wilderness. He has ordered a mail order bride from Scandinavia. The main reason is that he wants sons who would take over the ranch from him before he gets too old.

When his wife Hannah arrives he effectively treats her as a slave and even forces himself on her. This is a story of how it was in the old days in the 19th century.

Liv Ullmann plays Hanna and she does not take it lying down and is determined to turn the farm into a home. Turn Zandy into someone respectable.

Susan Tyrell plays a floozy, Maria that Zandy seems to have had a past dalliance with. Zandy is wary of her, this is a clannish community with hints of inbreeding. Zandy does not want bad blood hence why he has got a wife from the outside.

There is an outdoor barbecue scene where we learn a little about this isolated community and also Zandy's family life.

If you think Zandy is bad, he is a progressive compared to his father. Zandy's mother is very much aware what Hannah is going through. She knows how hard life and her own husband has been to her.

Zandy and Hannah resolve to make their marriage work and she rewards him with issue. In turn Zandy softens a little, he gets her nice clothes and even a stove from San Francisco.

The film is a slow burn drama but it does not have much action. For those of us, myself included whose only experience of The Big Sur is the coastal route to LA to San Francisco or vice-versa. This is an insight to a real community that once lived beyond those roads.

The film is rewarded with wonderful photography but it feels empty despite the rich performances.

I had read the book, and was looking forward to the movie.

Happily, I wasn't disappointed.

Zandy's Bride is the story of an unsociable, uncivilised, isolated man who sends for a mail order bride.

He has little experience around women other than his mother and treats his new wife rather badly.

It is an interesting character study of two people thrown together, and how they adapt to their new life together.

I really enjoyed this movie. It reminds me of some of the romance novels that I've read, especially those by Maggie Osborne. She writes very nice western themed romances. Like hers, this movie starts off with an unlikely pair who fall in love eventually after the usual stuff...cheating, overcoming stubbornness, and so on. Just a nice, entertaining and endearing movie that should be thought of and viewed as just that.

This is a profoundly realistic and perfectly-acted story that goes much beyond the previous commenter's assertion. It is a portrait of far west ranch life at its most primal and difficult. Love was not the issue in that world. The cinematography and direction were also great. Gene Hackman and Liv Ullman are subtle actors who deliver in this overlooked but wonderful film. Although I only saw it once, the dramatic intensity and truthfulness of the tale stayed with me. I've always remembered this film, as standing outside the norm. The visual memory is black and white, though I think the film is in color. The few but intense human connections were poignant, the imagery lasting.

Zandy's Bride is a unique film, in that its sense of realism is remarkably good. The character Hackman and Ullman portrayed are believable: strong, simple, independent, honery at times, solemn, determined to survive. Their portrayal is how I would have imagined earlier settlers in a harsh, and unforgiving environment to act.

I enjoy researching and reading about the common struggles of people throughout American history. All the more reason to give this film high praise, and again not because its tainted with Matrixisque, and any other high tech movie spillover, with its intense action, and depletion of substantive characterization. This film dealt with human conflict and the mistakes we consistently seem to make, before we are forced to face someone with whom we can trust and care for. This is one of the best films to watch in our day of complexity and lack of inspiration.. How and when can I watch it again, is my comment and question.