Les Émigrants

One of the few foreign language films to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards (it didn't win, of course), The Emigrants tells the story of the hardships a family faces in a rural county of Sweden, causing them to look to America as a refuge. What's interesting about The Emigrants is that the film is Swedish- you wouldn't necessarily expect the Swedes to make a film about how awful Sweden is and how great the United States is. But, using a realistic and not melodramatic approach, the film lets us know what the family is struggling with and allows us to understand them.

The characters, played by Ingmar Bergman regulars Max von Sydow, Liv Ullmann and Allan Edwall, face poor harvests, starvation, poverty, religious persecution and even false rumours of bestiality. They look to the US as a place where a farmer can become rich, with even American slavery looking better than their previous situation. Getting to North America, however, will take a rough voyage in which our heroes will face disease, lice and death, and come into psychological conflict with each other. This makes for a strong drama.

Surely one of the best foreign films of the 1970s and a great addition to the strong cinematic year 1971, The Emigrants is an understated but still compelling film, and I look forward to The Criterion Collection's restoration.

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 follows Karl Oskar (Max von Sydow) and Kristina (Liv Ullman), plus their children and some extended family members and neighbors, on their journey from rural Sweden to America in the 1840s. The movie excels at showing the backbreaking work required just to stay afloat on a struggling farm, as well as the everyday misfortunes and occasional calamities that could ruin those already on the brink of economic catastrophe.

Few of the characters believe the streets of America are paved with gold. Instead, The Emigrants is a brutally realistic take about struggling and seeing no future in one's homeland and deciding to risk everything in order to have a shot at a better future. The movie is neither cliche nor cynical about the "American Dream." It makes its social points through contrasts and juxtaposition. We see the wealthy Americans aboard a steamboat interspersed with jarring shots of chained slaves below. There also are incredible moments of wonder, like the elderly Swedish woman seeing a steam engine approach for the first time in her life.

The film is an honest and moving portrait about one group of Swedish expats seeking opportunity, whether financial or religious. Perhaps most of all, the movie captures the sense of home and of homelessness for the characters. The chemistry between von Sydow and Ullmann is incredible. Husband and wife, they say they are best friends, and it shows. It's powerful acting.

I would give this film a 9/10, but for the editing. At least a half hour of this film could have been left on the cutting-room floor, particularly in the first half. You could walk away for several minutes and miss nothing. Otherwise, The Emigrants definitely worth seeing.

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.

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.