Jérusalem

Between his two works (DAS GEISTERHAUS / The HOUSE of the SPIRITS // FRÄULEIN SMILLAS GESPÜR FÜR SCHNEE / SMILLAS SENSE OF SNOW) for CONSTANTIN producer Bernd EICHINGER, the Danish director Bille AUGUST fulfilled his dream and made this Swedish film based on a novella by the Swedish Nobel Prize winner for literature Selma LAGERLÖF.

It tells the story of a small community in Sweden at the end of the 19th century, which falls into religious madness and emigrates together to the Holy Land. The young lovers Ingmar (Ulf FRIBERG) and Gertrud (Maria BONNEVIE) also get caught up in the turmoil of this religious enthusiasm, which doesn't end well...

A quiet and impressive film that is rarely seen in German-speaking countries. I remember a TV broadcast sometime in the nineties.

Pernilla AUGUST, ACADEMY AWARD nominee Max von SYDOW and ACADEMY AWARD winner Olympia DUKAKIS can also be seen in other roles.

Very interesting study of the effects of religion, especially cult-like Christianity, in a small Swedish town at the turn of the 20th century.

Has a great feel for time and place, and some very moving moments.

It almost becomes a great film, but – at least on 1st viewing – there was too much missing from understanding some of he characters' choices (perhaps because this was edited down from a mini-series), and a few too many melodramatic twists (again, with more time that might have felt less bothersome as they might have felt less on top of each other.)

Certainly a film I could imagine re-visiting, and would love to see the full, longer version.

With breath-taking scenery, this film is one of the very best Swedish films ever. Beautiful and true to the history of Christianism in the late 19th century, this piece of art is as much a homage to Selma Lagerlöf as it is to our national heritage. It is also a sad love story, of how religion and fanaticism can destroy families, shatter homes and lay to waste entire towns and villages: the fear of the cruel God.

Ultimately, this film tells us that home is where the heart is, religion or not. It is rather love that is the essence here, whether it be love of God or love of family and the love of home, and it is obvious to me that loneliness is the price Karin has to pay for her fanaticism.

A beautiful film.

The film is based on a novel by Selma Lagerlof and itself is indeed a magnificent epic of a Scandinavian spirit, though not that naive in its approach as one finds in, say, some famous epic movies based on Scottish history. In my eyes the film is a revelation of a fragile human story, full of obstacles and hard days, proceeded by a careful, attentive eye, and smooth in a sense that the sequence of events do not overshadow each other but rather form a nice waving flow, thus sustaining intensity not in separate scenes but rather as a whole, where each moment is masterfully organized. Also, though dealing with difficult issues, the film sees people not as a collection of scenes of despair, but as a continuous spirit, worth of admiration after all.

If you want an entertaining film in the narrow sense then I suggest this is not the right one to choose and you might be disappointed. Else, go and see it, it is rewarding in a sense of how much attention and openness you can give to it, a film its director Bille August did not manage to overtake by now, despite his expensive Hollywood attempts.

It is a curiosity to see a Swedish film because of its quality and performance of the actors/actresses. This one is directed by Bille August, the same one of the "House of the Spirits", "Pelle Erobreren" and "Les Miserables" (1998). The religiousness of the members of the Swedish community is here shown, who once decided to go and to establish themselves in Jerusalem. Interesting scenes are in the film, one of the most convincing one is when Ingmar had sex for the first time with his wife, it was the desire of the woman to have something until that moment forbidden by his husband for her. The morale of the film could be that a couple may be in love for long, but this does not mean that they necessarily will be married, other circumstances may change the way the things were going.