alan-467

As others have said, this movie borrows quite a lot from the movie of "The Wicker Man". It also has a similar theme to the Tom Tryon book "Harvest Home".

Both the aforementioned are infintely better and more thought-provoking than this piece of garbage. It's far too long and has no characters that I could empathise with.

The scenery is not much like Hälsingland (which is mostly forested) - I am told that it was actually filmed in Hungary. Why? The Wicker Man took place in Scotland and was actually filmed in Scotland.

The background music is intrusive. The frequent singing is painfully amateurish (and sounds nothing like Swedish folk music, like the costumes are nothing like Swedish folk costumes).

All in all, I hated this movie! I watched it through to the end hoping that it would improve, but it didn't - just dragged out to a predictable conclusion.

If you can find a copy of "Harvest Home" to read instead, I can recommend it.

I tried reading this fairy story by Neil Gaiman last year, but gave up after a few dozen pages (there's a limit to how much I can suspend disbelief), but it translates well to a movie, which rushes along without giving you much time to think about it. I have to admit I was impressed. The story is ridiculous of course, but the visuals are OK to good and the acting is excellent (especially Claire Danes as the constantly complaining fallen star) - the cast all seemed to throw themselves into it with enthusiasm. It's a tad long at just over two hours, considering that it's targeted at children, so you may be wise splitting it into two showings if you get the DVD. Worth watching at least once.