IMDb RATING
7.3/10
1.3K
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A working class teenager comes of age in 1910s rural Sweden, moving from job to job and meeting a variety of individuals who gradually shape his future.A working class teenager comes of age in 1910s rural Sweden, moving from job to job and meeting a variety of individuals who gradually shape his future.A working class teenager comes of age in 1910s rural Sweden, moving from job to job and meeting a variety of individuals who gradually shape his future.
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The movie is about a young man, 15 yo Olof, leaving his home and starting a life on his own. An Australian friend said: "This is Art House". I don´t agree. This movie captures ordinary people in the early 1900-hundreds, struggling to survive in a harsh environment and dreaming dreams ordinary, poor people dreamt, and still dream. The dream of a better future. That is, in a way, as mainstream as It could be. Another thing is that Olof´s saga is told with an outstanding level of cinematography. Jan Troell masters his tools extraordinarily, telling the story with extreme close-ups, astonishing panoramas, over-exposures, beautiful colors and grainy black&White footage. The sense of pictures and details characterizes Jan Troell´s work. It´s no wonder this amazing movie led him to the assignment of directing "The Emigrants" and "The New Land". Those movies made him internationally famous. Watch this, and you will see why.
The nearly three-hour film tracks the teenage years of Olof (Eddie Axberg) in the late 1910's. He leaves home at age 15 to find work, settling in at a lumber company, meeting odd characters and learning about life. Olof later moves on to working at a movie theater, and eventually a traveling circus. His experiences shape his outlook, as does his voracious reading, with a particular interest in philosophy.
Lyrical, meandering, often beautiful, this was director Troell's feature debut. It's a snapshot of Sweden at a particular time and among a particular class, but the film holds universal appeal thanks to the quality of its compositions and the effective performances. The secondary characters come and go, with Axberg's Olof being the one constant, and he anchors the film well. The cinematography is mostly B&W, but there are bits here and there in color, usually memories or imaginings of Olof's. Recommended.
Lyrical, meandering, often beautiful, this was director Troell's feature debut. It's a snapshot of Sweden at a particular time and among a particular class, but the film holds universal appeal thanks to the quality of its compositions and the effective performances. The secondary characters come and go, with Axberg's Olof being the one constant, and he anchors the film well. The cinematography is mostly B&W, but there are bits here and there in color, usually memories or imaginings of Olof's. Recommended.
Jan Troell's debut film is a pleasure to view. It's realistic, yet artful, and shot in tasteful black and white. He takes great care with poetry of nature, along with picturesque composition.
Alas, when it comes to original narrative, Mr. Troell doesn't demonstrate that's his forte. The film for me felt largely redundant, as though almost half could be deleted for a stronger cumulative statement.
Later on in his career, "The Immigrants" and "The New Land" revealed the film maker's talent best realized. In contrast, "Here's Your Life" merely shows technical promise in its photographic imagery. What's needed is a skilled writer.
It's easy to understand the work being selected by Sweden as its entry in the Academy Award foreign language category--and the Academy's rejecting it's qualification.
Today it's a "forgotten film" shown occasionally on the TCM network.
Alas, when it comes to original narrative, Mr. Troell doesn't demonstrate that's his forte. The film for me felt largely redundant, as though almost half could be deleted for a stronger cumulative statement.
Later on in his career, "The Immigrants" and "The New Land" revealed the film maker's talent best realized. In contrast, "Here's Your Life" merely shows technical promise in its photographic imagery. What's needed is a skilled writer.
It's easy to understand the work being selected by Sweden as its entry in the Academy Award foreign language category--and the Academy's rejecting it's qualification.
Today it's a "forgotten film" shown occasionally on the TCM network.
Long, lumbering tale of teenage Olof and his coming-of-age journey through Sweden in the 1910s. This award-winning epic tells both a rite-of-passage story, and a fairly interesting depiction of rural Sweden and the country's early proletarian and workers' movement.
Great production values and cinematography underline competent movie-making for sure... but we never get to know the protagonist enough to really care in the end, because of its overly episodic narrative. What's more, it contains at least one HOUR of footage and scenes that neither move, entertain or push the story forward... Poetic? No, in my book, that's being guilty of painfully redundant screen time! It's on many a list of best-ever Swedish movies. To me, it's not bad (as stated), but I probably wouldn't even rank it on my Swedish top-50...
5 out of 10 from Ozjeppe
Great production values and cinematography underline competent movie-making for sure... but we never get to know the protagonist enough to really care in the end, because of its overly episodic narrative. What's more, it contains at least one HOUR of footage and scenes that neither move, entertain or push the story forward... Poetic? No, in my book, that's being guilty of painfully redundant screen time! It's on many a list of best-ever Swedish movies. To me, it's not bad (as stated), but I probably wouldn't even rank it on my Swedish top-50...
5 out of 10 from Ozjeppe
A magnificent but almost forgotten movie, even in Sweden, although it was awarded Best Direction in the Swedish Oscars, Filmbaggen, in 1967, collected two awards at the Berlin Film Festival 1967, and took the two top awards in the Chicago Film Festival 1967. It seems impossible to get hold of on VHS or DVD, even in Sweden (although it was released on video in Sweden in 1997). However, it is shown in Swedish art-house cinemas ever so often. The cinematography is beautiful (Jan Troell always does his on cinematography, he started working as cinematographer for Bo Widerberg), and the story about the young man in northern Sweden during World War I is both moving and funny. Full of cameos of some of the biggest stars in Swedish cinema, like Max von Sydow, Gunnar Björnstrand, Allan Edvall and Per Oscarsson.
Did you know
- TriviaThis film is part of the Criterion Collection, spine #766.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Minns Ni? (1993)
- How long is Here Is Your Life?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Runtime2 hours 49 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.66 : 1
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