Les Émigrants

Part 1 of a two-part epic (the second part is 1972's The New Land), I half thought about watching The Emigrants and its second part as one long movie, but The Emigrants by itself is plenty for now. I'd probably burn out and therefore not be able to appreciate The New Land properly if I tried to marathon them, but do plan to find the time to finish this two-part epic within the next day or two.

The Emigrants alone feels like two, or maybe even three, movies in one. Its runtime exceeds three hours, and it tells the story of a group of farmers in Sweden during the 1800s deciding to start a new life in America. This first half of the overall saga involves establishing how bad life was for a farmer in Sweden, then showing the arduous journey by boat from Sweden to America, and then finally, it spends some time with the characters as they travel further inland after setting foot in America.

It's gruelling by design, and viscerally captures how difficult such a journey would have been back during the middle of the 19th century. The section spent at sea is particularly harrowing, but I guess it has to be, and it doesn't shy away from anything when it comes to claustrophobia, seasickness, lice, terrible food, disease, and death. It makes The Emigrants a tough but compelling watch, and part of me wonders what The New Land will do to keep the stakes high, because it's hard to imagine things getting worse than that trip across the ocean (I may end up eating my words 24-48 hours from now, but we'll have to wait and see).

Not a film for everyone, but I thought it moved pretty well considering its length and slow pace. Performances were generally strong, and it had some very good visuals too. I get the sense Terrence Malick would have loved this movie, too, because I see bits of Badlands, Days of Heaven, The New World, and A Hidden Life in here at times.

The Emigrants is one of the best stories ever told of a family's emigration to America to flee an authoritarian government and find better land for farming.

I was trying to explain one of the most unique things about the film (and its 2nd part, The New Land) to my brother but I was having a hard time finding the words. Finally, "transfixed" was what I was looking for. The film is long but it held me "transfixed" with nearly every scene. The shots are long. The dialog is often sparse. The soundtrack is almost non-existent. Rather, the director holds one nearly spellbound by "showing" rather "telling" the story. The imagery and expressions on the actors' faces and their silent actions relate most of what makes this film so powerful.

As the viewer, you feel almost like you are right there with the characters, sharing the moments along side them. One becomes immersed in what is happening as if you are there. The powerful empathy that the film manages to generate within the viewer is really quite amazing given the lack (or maybe due to the lack) of modern cinematic styles and techniques.

Another thing about this film that is incredibly impressive is that the viewer really gets a sense of how someone migrating from Sweden at the time would see things and think. The perspective is fresh and unapologetically authentic. Unlike many films set in the past, it does not "dumb-down" any aspect by modernizing or "updating" anything to make it easier for a modern audience to relate to (language, mannerisms, music, etc.). One of my biggest peeves about modern films set in the past is that, other than the wardrobe, everything else is modern... modern language, modern manners, modern politics/norms, modern music (electric guitar in the soundtrack of a "western" film?). It is also refreshingly unpolluted by modern-day political correctness.

This is really a fantastic work of art that in many ways, gets better with time as it is so accurate and truthful to the situation and period. The 2nd part, "The New Land" is equally as fantastic. It is not a "sequel" per se, but rather the filmmaker realized he would need several hours to accurately portray the story set out in the book and one movie would be too long. So, it was essentially shot as one long movie but released in two parts in back-to-back years.

This film really provides the viewer with an authentic sense of the times and the situations many emigrants went through in the mid-19th century. One of the best film discoveries I've made in a long time. Highly recommended.

When Jan Troell's "The Emigrants" was released in the U.S. in 1972, it opened to excellent reviews and received the honor of being one of the few foreign-language films to receive a Best Picture nomination. It didn't win anything, though, and seems to have been forgotten over the years. Perhaps this is because the public has since found other Swedish films to be more noteworthy, in particular the works of Bille August and the later works of Ingmar Bergman.

Sad to say, because "The Emigrants" is a film that closely examines two very different cultures in an effective and insightful way. A diverse group of Swedish peasants (among them a married couple, a priest, a prostitute, and a young upstart) endure back-breaking labor in their homeland to little profit. They decide to move to the states after being influenced by the exaggerated stories spread abroad (everyone has more than enough food, everyone is filthy rich, etc.). The audience sympathizes with them not just because they endure so much in Sweden, but also because they believe the stories they hear about frontier life in America. Yes, they will obviously have to strive and struggle to survive in their new home, but they are all the more admirable because of their adherence to the American dream.

"The Emigrants" is harsh and often unrelenting in the straightforward way it depicts the realities encountered by the Swedish settlers. The scenes where they travel across the ocean in a small, cramped, and diseased ship are appropriately claustrophobic and terrifying. Later, the family at the center of the story threatens to break up when Liv Ullmann's character, a fragile young mother, loses track of her daughter while hurrying to board a steamboat.

Although most of the characters were better developed in the sequel to this film, "The New Land," Troell's story is very moving in its sincere depiction of how outsiders came to this country to pursue their hopes and dreams.

Jan Troell, has truly captured the feeling of what inspires people to emigrate and the subsequent hardships that await in the land of hope. True masters of the craft, Sydow and Ullmann, are superb in their performances. They truly pull you into the time, the frame of mind and thus make you feel like you are sharing their voyage. A great film that is everything a film should be - moving. It is a mystery why this film did not win an Oscar for best foreign picture, best actress and best actor - though with all fairness, with both Caberet and The Godfather in the running, it would have required a miracle. If you should have the luck of stumbling onto this film at a rental shop, thank Fellini's ghost - grasp it and head for the check out.

Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann play a husband and wife who decide to emigrate to America with their family and fellow villagers in the mid-19th century.

The first part of the film details the challenges these people face that make them want to emigrate in the first place. An oppressive village hierarchy in which all laws and rules of accepted behavior are arbitrated by a self-appointed few, as well as conditions that make farming a constant struggle, leave them craving the freedoms and fertility of the mythic U.S. The second part of the film is a meticulous recreation of what the actual journey was like, including a long segment about the miseries of crossing the Atlantic Ocean (including sea sickness and lice), and the interminable trek up the Mississippi River to Minnesota once they landed. It's almost impossible to wrap your head around how frightening this entire experience would have been for them. These people knew almost nothing about the world outside of their small Swedish village (one young man doesn't even know how the ocean works and thinks they're all going to drown if the water rises) and trust themselves to strangers who don't speak their language or really have any reason to look out for their interests. It's a fascinating film and feels more like a documentary than a fictional narrative.

Unfortunately, the only version I was able to see was the dubbed one shown by TCM. I would have much preferred to see it subtitled so that I could experience von Sydow's and Ullmann's performances as they were meant to be experienced.

"The Emigrants" was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1971 Academy Awards, and then because of Oscar's weird eligibility rules popped up again a year later with four nominations, for Best Picture, Best Director (Jan Troell), Best Actress (Ullmann), and Best Adapted Screenplay. At the time, it was only the third foreign language film after "Grand Illusion" and "Z" to receive a Best Picture nomination. And the film's sequel, "The New Land," was up for Best Foreign Language Film the same year that "The Emigrants" was in the Best Picture race. Good couple of years for director Jan Troell.

Grade: A