Utvandrarna and Nybyggarna The Swedish film Utvandrarna was shown in the U.S. with the title The Emigrants (1971). The film Nybyggarna was shown with the title The New Land (1972). Both movies were co-written and directed by Jan Troell. Troell was also the cinematographer and the editor of both. (Sounds crazy, but he did it.) The films are actually one long film, broken in half so that each could be seen separately. As can be guessed from the titles, the first film sets up the plot by showing us that, despite intelligence and hard work, many families couldn't make a living on the small plots of land in Sweden. The second film follows the family from Sweden to the United States. The situation for them in the U.S. isn't that much better when they arrive, but they have reasonable hope that they will succeed. Max von Sydow plays the husband, Karl Oskar, and Liv Ullmann plays his wife, Kristina. Both are extraordinarily talented. In addition, Von Sydow is handsome, and Ullmann is impossibly beautiful. The remainder of the cast is strong, and the acting by the children is wonderful. These movies will work better on the large screen, but we had to settle for the small screen. Both films carry very high IMDb rating of 8.0. I gave each a 10.

Watched all 4 hours of it, but it was painful. Amazingly slow, long winded, repetitive and lugubrious saga of dour Lutherans working themselves to death. Hard to believe it was a sequel. Also extended passages of some of the most irritating music score in cinema --- prolonged, unaccompanied drums. Just endless drums for what seems like a 40 minute sequence.

In the 1970s, The Emmigrants and The New Land became a combined surprise success in America. I saw them on back to back nights at a theater in Northern California.They even spawned a short-lived TV series on ABC in 1974, also called The New Land, and featuring a young Kurt Russell. Today, no bottom line fixated TV executive would green light such a drama series. What? No cops, no doctors, no forensic experts? No go. I guess the 70s were a more adventurous time in TV programing. In any case, the series was canceled after one season. I recently read Vilhelm Moberg's novel (I think there were really three novels in this saga), The Last Letter Home, and while Karl-Oskar dies at the end of the novel, he does not suffer quite the humiliation his character suffers in the film. At the end of the film, I seem to recall that he had been forced (by bad health, perhaps?) to leave his farm and live in as an anonymous shuffling old man in some urban setting. In the novel he is still on his farm when he dies. Perhaps Jan Troell, the director of the film was trying to make a point about how the struggles of the pioneers are not remembered or honored by those generations who came after them. it's too bad these films seem to have also slipped from our collective memory.

This is an important movie historically, though many will also find it very slow going and a bit boring. While this IS true, the life of the average immigrant of this time was ALSO quite boring, so to keep the movie as an accurate representation of the Swedish-American experience, it is awfully low-key to say the least. The acting, like the average Swedish immigrant, is very restrained and understated. Again, they were seeking absolute realism and got it. However, while I generally enjoyed this SLOW tale, I found the part when von Sydow's brother returned to be very poorly executed. Instead of a narrative, it was shown through cloudy dreams and confusing snippets--and TOTALLY derailed the movie until this segment was completed. I really can't understand why they chose to change the pacing, focus and perspective of the film so abruptly. Well, fortunately, after this brother dies, the film gets back on track. Not a great film, as it's too slow to interest all but the biggest historians and cinephiles and the segment with the brother just didn't ring true. However, its importance as a realistic portrayal of the immigrant experience is great.