Le nouveau monde

Swedish filmmaker Jan Troell's categorical pièces-de-résistance, a diptych, 7-hours long saga based on his fellow countryman, the literature titan Vilhelm Moberg's THE EMIGRANTS ensemble.

Divided into THE EMIGRANTS and THE NEW LAND, this 19th-century epic holds a dear look at the travails of an ordinary Swedish household, the Nilsson family, resides in the Småland hinterland, when (mostly natural) adversity mounts against their livelihood, the eldest son Karl Oskar (von Sydow) mulls over the prospect of emigrating to the United States. A proposition deprecated by his wife Kristina (Ullmann) initially, but when poverty and hunger is aggravated by the premature death of one of their brood, she eventually accedes, joining their emigrating pack are Karl Oskar's younger brother Robert (Axberg), his farmhand friend Arvid (Lindstedt), the family of Kristina's uncle Pastor Daniel Andreasson (Edwall, a straight-up hard-hitter, brilliantly bringing about an air of smug virtuosity that treacherously verges on hubris), who is at loggerheads with the supercilious local parish clergy for preaching to the fallen ones (viz. those who are deemed not worthy of Christian gospel), among whom a former prostitute Ulrika (jazz chanteuse Monica Zetterlund), now a reborn woman, also partakes in the trek with her teenage daughter Elin (played by Monica's own daughter Eva-Lena Zetterlund).

THE EMIGRANTS itself can be bisected into two halves, before and after the family's embarkment for the state of Freedom, during the former, Troell introduces the hardship and inequity (religious parochialism and mistreatment) with a pastoral equanimity (occasionally lard with invigorating drumbeats) and purveys his main characters with sufficient impetus for their longing for a reset button in an idealized country where everyone is (purportedly) being treated equally and fairly, especially for the young Robert, it is the California gold rush beckons him, and supports him against the cavalier abuse he receives on a daily base when working as a farmhand.

Once their journey kick-starts, a looming nostalgia begins to sweep the cohort, Troell (who is also presiding over the cinematography department) fixes the valediction shot with a subdued solemnity, no goodbyes, tear-infused eyes, lingering looks are deployed, just a long-shot of the elderly parents seeing their children off in front of their house, incorporating the place into their final adieu, and the impact is ineffable.

Tellingly, THE EMIGRANTS' most accomplished passage is the ten-weeks trans-Atlantic voyage on a wooden brig, and Troell valiantly re-enacts its sordid state of affairs with swingeing maritime verisimilitude when most passengers are fallen victims of sea-sick, life is snuffed within a two-by-four space, by scurvy or even quinsy (a pertinent reference to today's illegal immigrants' ordeal on the sea). Here Liv Ullmann holds court in two magnificent scenes, one is Kristina's altercation with Ulrika, both actress are emotively unsparing, and letting out their prejudice and retorts once for all, which also presciently serves as a catalyst for their eventually best-friends transition; the other is when Kristina, apparently in extremis, exchanges with Karl Oskar their fondness, as if for the last time, by confessing that they are each other's best friends, a superlative affirmation that true love does exist thanks to the two players' most poignant delivery.

Once the survivors touches the terra firma but incognita, they are still miles away from where they will start life anew, hopping on the train and later a steamer, than on foot, when they finally reach their destination in Minnesota, their first dream is dashed by a boastful liar who never expect his lie will be debunked in his face, and THE EMIGRANTS finishes when Karl Oskar finds their new land under their new identities, American homesteaders.

Right picking up where its predecessor leaves, THE NEW LAND takes place entirely in the new land, where the Swedish emigrants forming a somewhat enclave, mostly living among themselves, which brings about a problematic issue about the story's sense of locality and Troell's inaction of alleviate this anonymity, if it is not for the random appearances of the indigenous Indians, one can safely surmise that the household is still live in their homeland, with very similar sylvan exuberance and harsh winter-time, and not much foreignness to interact with, in a way, it takes the shine off one of the story's focal points: displacement.

Yet, what THE NEW LAND excels in, is that oater flashback of Robert, who manages to stay alive just long enough after a futile gold-digging attempt with Arvid, a sounding slap in the face to the wide-eyed daydreamers, the pair is saddled with the same drudgery and hardship (not to mention Robert's potluck is rooked by deception) that ultimate will cost them both their young lives, here Troell launches a more hallucinogenic experiment in accentuating the pair's delirium and exhaustion when wandering in the desert, to admirable effect. Eddie Axberg has weathered convincingly in honing up Robert's tale of woe, and his final resignation with fate effectually brings a lump in one's throat.

Life goes on, as Karl Oskar's household finally prospers, a God-fearing Kristina turns out to be benighted enough to risk her own life for the sake of procreation, indoctrinated as a wife's sacrosanct duty, even after receiving the doctor's warning that another pregnancy would become her undoing, together with a less disinterested depiction of a wanton slaughter during the Sioux Uprising, by suggestion that it is at the expense of those white homesteaders' hospitality upon which the Indians conducts their retaliation, THE NEW LAND's luster starts to ebb away, notwithstanding a show-stopping Max von Sydow consistently radiates with plebeian bonhomie, sympathy and mettle from stem to stern of the entire roman-fleuve.

I watched this the day after watching The Emigrants. They're really one film cut into two very long halves. I suppose Kill Bill 2 also is a standalone movie, but no one would recommend seeing only that and not watching Kill Bill 1. It's the same for The Emigrants and The New Land. Certain relationships in this movie only have power because of the backstory found in The Emigrants, such as Robert and Arvid's close friendship, why Kristina is so attached to Kristina despite religious differences, and even why Uncle Danjel is relevant.

The cinematography in this film felt more jarring and experimental, particularly with respect to Robert's trip out west. The movie is incredibly long and drawn out, and the timeline can be hard to pinpoint. An hour may be spent on days or weeks and then years suddenly pass between camera cuts.

This film does excel at showing both the impact of loss and how commonplace death was on the frontier. Danger never was far away, and seemingly distant occurrences suddenly could have local impact, whether the Civil War or strife with the Indian tribes. The New Land a pretty good film, but it suffers even more so than The Emigrants from overlength and without quite as much punch.

This is an extraordinary film, which I gave 10 out of 10 even if Warner Brothers, the film's theatrical distributor, cut the film in half for its American release. If ever this film (and its predecessor, "The Emigrants") makes it to DVD, I sincerely hope those 102 minutes are restored, so that I can at last see the film that Jan Troell intended for me to see.

As it looks on video, "The New Land" is still magnificent - its depiction of Swedish immigrants settling in frontier Minnesota outdoing every Western ever made. Be sure to look for the scene that George Lucas stole wholesale where Max von Sydow slaughters an ox and places his freezing son inside it during a snowstorm.

"The New Land" is the second half of a story started in Troell's "The Emigrants," which depicted the struggles of a band of Swedish peasants in their move to America. Here, several of the settlers- such as the priest and the prostitute- move away in the first half-hour and reappear here and there throughout the rest of the film. The plot focuses on Karl-Oscar, his wife Kristina, and the family they try to raise in the Minnesota wilderness.

Von Sydow and Ullmann are given a chance to embellish on their characters, and they both do excellent work. Axberg also does a fine job of lending more depth to the character of Robert, Karl-Oscar's rebellious younger brother. There is also material worked in that examines the mistreatment (and eventual uprising) of local Native Americans and the futile searches for gold in the north. These other elements do not always seem to fit with the central story, but they effectively add to the sense of time and place anyway.

"The New Land" does not have the same emotional impact that "The Emigrants" had, but it develops the two central characters more and intelligently explores how they learn to adapt to their new life. Put together, these two films convincingly illustrate the plight of those who forged our frontier.

In 2016 after years of waiting, Criterion Collection has released this two-part epic in Blu-Ray and standard DVD. For fullest effect, the two segments should be played as in the original, theatrical release: "The Emigrants" entirely in Swedish (with English subtitles), "The New Land" in English. It is in itself quite an achievement that the cast of both is virtually identical yet are competent in the new and old languages. Scandinavian immigrants to the Minnesota Territory in the 1850's--before the US Civil War-- found conditions both familiar and alien. The cold climate was like their native land but the soil of the New World was more fertile and not so stony. It was a place of open spaces and vast pine forests, few towns and no cities to compare with Stockholm or Oslo.

In the story, friendships are tested, some broken over issues of religion. Family life isn't always smooth or predictable. There are generational conflicts. Historical events are alluded to such as the Civil War or depicted, if briefly, like the 1862 uprising of the Eastern Sioux, starving on their Minnesota reservation, with deadly attacks on surrounding settlements until put down by the US Army. Yet the Indian side of the conflict is given play, also, with the emigrants coming to understand that The New Land had belonged to others before them.