I came across this film by accident on YouTube and watched it because of Selma Lagerlof's name. I'm not an expert on Scandinavian literature, but I've heard about this writer mainly in the context of her most popular novel, "The Wonderful Adventures of Nils". I liked the film "Das Madchen vom Moorhof", although I haven't read the novel on which it was based. The acting and the realities of everyday life were decent in my opinion, which allowed me to concentrate on the story itself. The film was another look at the rural, class-stratified community of the late 19th century with its Christian-based morality. I believe the characters were carefully thought out and were not static, which revealed the hand of a great writer. It was particularly interesting for me that my Polish grandparents still attended schools in the Russian Empire, and I could compare the content of the film to the memories of my grandparents, because despite the different geographical location, it was a similar era and a similar mentality. Comparisons also came to mind with the novels of Thomas Hardy and the Swedish writer Vilhelm Moberg, who also described rural communities and whom I enjoyed reading in my youth. Of course, my interest in film was greater because I come from a rural background too. According to Selma Lagerlof, it was a simple (or simplistic) world based on simple moral principles, but today most of us cannot tell how much of this simplicity was real and how much was the ideology of the ruling classes. I have the impression that my grandfather, who was just a village carpenter, was more skeptical and more cautious in his judgments about what was right and what was wrong. Despite everything, overall, I found the film to be an engaging and worthwhile period piece, and enjoyed watching it.
