Äppelkriget

I love this movie! I too saw it in Portland Oregon in the 70's. The movie became my #1 favorite and it's unfortunate that others have not seen it.

The assortments of characters in the film were each so delightful in their own way. I'm hoping to locate a copy with English subtitles so that I can share it with others and be delighted just as I was the first time when I viewed it.

This is a joyful film, a celebration of life, and just a lot of fun. I remember it from the '70s, when our local art house showed it -- and my wife and I must have seen it a half dozen times. I'd still love to get a video copy (with English subtitles!). This is probably the most fun way, bar none, to get a glimpse into Norse mythology, while also saving the Swedish countryside. It is only ironic that this movie pre-dates EuroDisney by, oh, a couple decades! This film sings -- and the music is part of the fun. This makes you believe in life and love again.

I, like everyone who has ever seen this movie in an art house in the U.S. has fond memories of this film. And yes, it is not available in this country either in English or subtitled in English.

BUT, for die-hards, there is a small sliver of hope. The film (and 3 others are available from a Scandinavian import house. Sorry, only in Swedish or Norwegian. If interested, go to www.skandimport.com. You can order this film and 3 others for the sum of $21.00. Very reasonable.

Unfortunately, I have no idea whether or not the other three films are at the level of the Apple Wars, but if you speak Swedish or Norwegian you may be in for a treat.

Remembering my viewing in Seattle of this film and watching Appelkriget on DVD, it was still a very pleasurable afternoon.

I loved this film when I first saw it in Seattle at the Egyptian Moore Theater in 1972. The Moore used to run this film regularly, and there was as much a cult following for this film as for Rocky Horror.

Great fun, with giants and other magical bits and pieces conspiring to rid their town of a corporative nightmare, "Deutschneyland, a gigantic amusement park for German tourists." Gentle fun and a lot of laughs.

Although not available on DVD (though I once found a bootleg copy dubbed in German on VHS!), The Apple War would be welcomed by a lot of folks, as would other films of this era, such as "Cat and Mouse" by Claude LeLouch, "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin," "No, Actually," and many, many others. There were a lot of terrific films and television series made in the 1970s, just prior to video becoming a household commodity, and I feel sure there is a ready market on couches around the world just waiting for their release.

I too saw this film in the 1970s at the Venice Fox, which was then an art house and which has now been re-purposed for auctions or something. They screened it for a week; it was some sort of benefit, and I remember going a second time and dragging a few friends with me. It remains one of my all-time favorite films. My Swedish friend, Lennart, says that it is fairly well-known in Sweden and remains popular--it's a lot of fun but it's also a piece of devastatingly targeted agit-prop. I've been searching for it, on and off, since I saw it, in the face of blank stares from the vast majority of Americans, who have never heard of it, and even from clerks in independent video stores, who think I'm nuts. If only someone would make a DVD with English-language subtitles!