Hamsun

Out of all the countless films and shows I've watched over the course of my life, there's barely a single one that felt like such an obvious insult to any reasonable viewer and reason itself.

Written by one of europes most notorious rad-fems (a man btw), this film seems to be some kind of attempt to "deconstruct" Hamsun as a person by people who seemingly hated him and had him live rentfree in their head for decades.

The film isn't called "Knut Hamsun" but "Hamsun" for a reason. It's all about his wife and written from her radical feminist, jealous, bitter and angry perspective (allthough his children and every other living being seem to hate him as well in this fever dream of a film).

The whole thing is an almost Ibsen-like (that's an insult) moral play, superficial, one-sided and always playing/turning men and women against each other.

You have to search with a magnifying glas in order to find one single scene that is at least somewhat realistic or one that doesn't just exist in order to stamp on Hamsuns grave when he can't defend himself.

It doesn't take a Hamsun fan, nor an academic who dedicated himself to Hamsun for a long time (like me) in order to see through this film after just 5 minutes.

Ironicly, the more the film tries to throw dirt on Hamsun, the more likable and human he gets. Especially since he's literally the only person in the film who isn't driven by obsessive, pathological moralism and self-righteousness.

All that said, I want to end this review with a friendly suggestion: Whatever you do, read the books of a writer for gods sake, not books about him. And avoid films about him since they are mostly too flattering or evil-spirited anyway.

Legendary director Jan Troell tells an uncompromising story from the Second World War in epic breadth and opulent images. His work avoids clear separations between good and evil. With Hamsun Jan Troell now makes use of a central protagonist who is both anti-hero and a victim of delusion. Late Max von Sydow offers the best portrayal of his life in the formation of Hamsun, an aloof, neck-wielding writer who was almost deaf completely dependent on his wife (Ghita Nørby). The film's plot begins in 1935, when Nobel Prize-winning Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun's passion for Hitler became increasingly known to everyone. The national bard is on the spotlight and becomes a traitor when he publicly speaks out for the German occupiers in 1940. It also portrays the relationship between Hamsun and his wife Marie in the years 1935 to 1952. They both sympathized with the Nazis, and this led to a lengthy trial against Hamsun which is one of the best highlights of the films.

Jan Troell tells of relationship and emotions at the end of the Second World War. He wraps the whole thing up in a melancholy drama, which is also loosened up again and again with a lot of dialog wit and humor. From the start, Troell has managed to break with classic clichés and shuffle the cards again and again. Hamsun is not what you would call entertainment, nor is it 100% clear who its audience is, but a good film nonetheless. The whole tragic tale is one of Jan Troell's yet again magic moments. He has so many of them. RIP Max von Sydow. there is plenty of competition, but his performance as Hamsun will be his greatest.

I expected an entirely different movie. Having read a single review when Hamsun was released, and having heard of him only from listings of Nobel Prize winners, I thought this would be about the traducing of a man's loyalty to country, the political evolution of an intellectual celebrity's thinking. It's not.

The movie is instead one of the most penetrating looks at a distinctive and more often than not failing, marriage I've ever seen. The examination begins after the couple have already been married 35 years; they are a tempestuous, often bitter, and jealous former author of children's books (and in youth, an actress) who desires love from her spouse - and a proud selfish ill-tempered intellectual author who lives in splendid rural isolation and admits his wife's nature disappoints him. The story of marriage is simply fascinating - even though the relations with their five children are cryptically portrayed.

It would be hard to ever better von Sydow's performance as Hamsun (or even as a man growing very old) - or the actress (previously unknown to me)who played his wife - they are simply astounding. I definitely recommend this movie - it is in the same vein as Cries and Whispers or Scenes from a Marriage.

The question I thought the film would address - the responsibility of someone for his words during wartime - is only glancingly struck. Without any attempt to whitewash Hamsun's written opinions favoring the Nazis who had occupied Norway, the movie's author clearly makes Hamsun more sympathetic as a human being as the movie continues.

I think few would agree about where the line should be drawn on punishment for one's opinions in a free society - when that society is at war. Most think those from the democracies who sympathized with the Nazis and Fascists during the Second World War (e.g., Ezra Pound, Celine, deKock, P.G.Wodehouse, Hamsun) are villainous. But is this because they sided with Nazis or because they sided with their country's enemies? Surely in a free society in peacetime, Ezra Pound's anti-semitic ravings and pro-fascist sympathies would not be punished as treason - any more than those who spoke, but did nothing, in favor of Stalin in America during the 1950s were ever tried for treason.

Clearly in a free society, the crime is not that one has taken a particular position, but that one has spoken in favor of an enemy during wartime. But if this is so, then what is one to say of those Americans who wrote to denounce the United States' war with North Vietnam? Or with Iraq? If we do refuse to label such writings as treason (and most probably do - few call for thousands of trials for treason), why? Could it be simply because neither Iraq nor North Vietnam was likely to so succeed that they would occupy the United States? If Iraq were winning so resoundingly that it now occupied parts of the United States, would writings denouncing the war and in favor of Iraq THEN be treason? Probably most would say so.

But by what logic does treason depend on whether one is winning or losing a war?

Further, if we assume a war between different ideologies, should those who have expressed sympathy for another country's ideology BEFORE any war - at a time when no one could have called it treason - be expected to completely forswear their former opinions the date the war is declared against that country? If so, is this not a strange definition of treason? That someone with PRE-WAR sympathies for a certain position must denounce his previous sympathies when his country goes to war against a country that shares his own beliefs?

Must someone perform an about face from his own repeatedly expressed views -- whenever his country enters a war - or be guilty of treason? Betray yourself or you betray your country? If so, is this not a demerit in any society professing to be free?

And yet no one can doubt that one's own country's success is badly affected (and conversely the enemy is uplifted) to the extent that influential people denounce their own government and praise the enemy - particularly when under enemy occupation.

The issues of treason for opinions are quite complex - but are scarcely touched on in this movie.

And that is fine - this is another movie altogether, psychologically penetrating, fascinating study of old age, of a poor marriage, of the unforeseen future as disappointment, of the yearning to die when old.

To put it nice and simple, this movie is wonderful.

Von Sydow delivers a performance worth of every Award on Earth, Ghita Norby as Hamsun's wife is also splendid, the movie is written and directed with a nice but firm hand, even on the most unpleasant portions of Hamsun's life.

Knut Hamsun had a controversial and tormented relationship with everything and everyone in his life, as self-centered as he was. The stigma of the true genius indeed.

His sympathy for Nazism caused him a lot of troubles when the war ended and Norway was free from the Nazi occupation and from the collaborationist government.

Hamsun's previous opinions, albeit somewhat changed as the Germans were showing their true colours, still were enough to get him accused of treason. After the trial and an humiliating detention in a mental hospital, Hamsun got labeled as "insane", despite still managed to write a sharp and honest apologetic memoir, at 90 years of age.

The movie capture all of that, with a level of immersion that is truly engaging and astonishing. And side-by-side with Hamsun's public success and subsequent downfall, we follow the downfall of his personal life, to a point where public and private become one.

As said, acting is nothing short of brilliant

The only, marginal, problem is the language... Everyone speaks Norwegian, while Hamsun and his wife speak Swedish and Danish. It's a tad weird hearing arguably the best Norwegian author in history and his wife talking to each other in a different language (neither of them being their actual one).

But in all honesty, if the lack of language consistency was the price to pay to get such a good performance, I would gladly have Hamsun and Marie speaking French...

FINAL VERDICT: Hamsun is graceful and brutal at the same time. A true gem.

One of the elements that make this film one of the most fascinating ever made is the use of language... while Knut and Marie Hamsun were Norwegians, Max von Sydow and Ghita Nørby speak Swedish and Danish respectively throughout the movie. To those not well-versed in Scandinavian languages, there is a very big difference. Most Swedes cannot understand more than 20% of spoken Danish and perhaps 60% of Norwegian. To make the comparison easier to grasp, imagine a Spanish movie where the main characters speak Portuguese and Italian. I don't know why this linguistic device was used, but the effect is remarkable. At first I figured it was a way to distance Norwegians from the main characters whom were regarded as traitors, but that theory doesn't hold since the character who plays Quisling (the man who "sold" Nazism to many Norwegians) speaks Norwegian throughout the film.

Trivia: throughout Scandinavia the name "Quisling" is not just synonymous with "back-stabber"... it has actually become a commonplace word and is found in most dictionaries. It is comparative to the phrase "his name is Mudd" in the U.S.