Les feux de la vie

Director Jan Troell filmed an autobiographical story by Eyvind Johnson about a boy coming of age in Sweden in the first decades of the twentieth century; the result is both empathetic and objective-we are touched by the kid's hardships and triumphs, but at the same time it shows the conditions of his life clearly and even dispassionately. The movie focuses on his working life, as he finds gigs as a logger, brickyard worker, film projectionist, and sawmill helper, most of them very dangerous; on the happier side, he meets girls and becomes an avid reader. This is a beautiful movie, but not for everyone-it moves slowly, it's in black and white, and some people might not be able to relate to the harsh life it portrays.

A beautiful bildungsroman-- a young man goes wandering through the world, making his way as he goes and meeting vivid people. The material isn't romantic-- poverty is general, and the young man discovers his own cruelty as well as the strengths that sustain him. This film had a huge cast, and Troell's use of widescreen fills the image with detail of 19th century provincial life that authenticates the performances-- I have remembered the dirty leer of its blacksmith for thirty years. I remember watching it, wishing there were an hour more of it.

Long, lumbering tale of teenage Olof and his coming-of-age journey through Sweden in the 1910s. This award-winning epic tells both a rite-of-passage story, and a fairly interesting depiction of rural Sweden and the country's early proletarian and workers' movement.

Great production values and cinematography underline competent movie-making for sure... but we never get to know the protagonist enough to really care in the end, because of its overly episodic narrative. What's more, it contains at least one HOUR of footage and scenes that neither move, entertain or push the story forward... Poetic? No, in my book, that's being guilty of painfully redundant screen time! It's on many a list of best-ever Swedish movies. To me, it's not bad (as stated), but I probably wouldn't even rank it on my Swedish top-50...

5 out of 10 from Ozjeppe

A magnificent but almost forgotten movie, even in Sweden, although it was awarded Best Direction in the Swedish Oscars, Filmbaggen, in 1967, collected two awards at the Berlin Film Festival 1967, and took the two top awards in the Chicago Film Festival 1967. It seems impossible to get hold of on VHS or DVD, even in Sweden (although it was released on video in Sweden in 1997). However, it is shown in Swedish art-house cinemas ever so often. The cinematography is beautiful (Jan Troell always does his on cinematography, he started working as cinematographer for Bo Widerberg), and the story about the young man in northern Sweden during World War I is both moving and funny. Full of cameos of some of the biggest stars in Swedish cinema, like Max von Sydow, Gunnar Björnstrand, Allan Edvall and Per Oscarsson.

The movie is about a young man, 15 yo Olof, leaving his home and starting a life on his own. An Australian friend said: "This is Art House". I don´t agree. This movie captures ordinary people in the early 1900-hundreds, struggling to survive in a harsh environment and dreaming dreams ordinary, poor people dreamt, and still dream. The dream of a better future. That is, in a way, as mainstream as It could be. Another thing is that Olof´s saga is told with an outstanding level of cinematography. Jan Troell masters his tools extraordinarily, telling the story with extreme close-ups, astonishing panoramas, over-exposures, beautiful colors and grainy black&White footage. The sense of pictures and details characterizes Jan Troell´s work. It´s no wonder this amazing movie led him to the assignment of directing "The Emigrants" and "The New Land". Those movies made him internationally famous. Watch this, and you will see why.