Great film from great story

Press, 18 December 1989, Page 22

Great film from great story

By

HANS PETROVIC

PELLE THE

CONQUEROR Directed and written by Bille August Hardship presented on a heroic level is what great stories are made of. If you can add to this excellent acting and superb photography, as in “Pelle the Conqueror” (Academy), then you have created one of the great epic films of recent years. Although the story, about a Swedish emigrant father and son eking out a cruel existence as labourers on a Danish farm at the turn of the century, is simple, it is presented on a grand scale, weaving a rich tapestry of subplots that present a microcosmic version of the bigger world outside. “Pelle the Conqueror” is based on Martin Andersen Nexo’s four-volume novel of that name, but only presenting the first quarter about the boy’s life on the farm. The novel is still regarded so highly in Denmark that the boy who plays the title role (Pelle Hvenegaard) was actually named after that character. The film starts dramatically, with a threemasted steam schooner emerging slowly from thick, white fog. Facing a future as uncertain as the fog-covered sea around them is a frightened father, Lasse (Max Von Sydow), who tells his young son, Pelle, "If you want, you can conquer the whole world.”

Once ashore in Denmark, they are the last of the poor Swedish emigrants to be hired, under near-slave conditions, as farmhands. Suitably named, Stone Farm is a bleak place bordered by a windblown coast, where the gates are locked each night to keep the workers in. Stone Farm is owned by the rich Kongstrups, who live in manorial splendour, while the farmhands are overseen by a sadistic manager and his callow trainee. It is a harsh place where Pelle suffers from the cruel prejudice against all Swedes. Pelle’s life as an underdog is not all bleak — it is also full of adventure and small wonders, thanks to the innocence of his youth. Many stories are woven into the main one. There is the tragic one of the beautiful milkmaid who falls in love with a young man from a good middleclass family; the enchanting one of a slightly retarded friend of Pelle’s who runs off to join a circus; and the one of the dreadful ' punishment meted to the farm-owner who seduces his niece. All this, plus the splendour of the changing seasons, is framed in the superb photography of Jorgen Persson, who is best remembered for the poetic beauty of “Elvira Madigan.” The director, Bille August, recreates the charm of a long-gone era far different from his only other film seen in Christchurch, “Twist and

Shout,” about growing up in Denmark during the Beatles era. . Stone Farm is somehow reminiscent of Charles Dickens’s Bleak House, while the hiring of the farmhands for a year at a time could have come from the pages of Thomas Hardy. Best of . all, however, is the excellent performance by Von Sydow as the ageing slow-witted father; a proud man wanting to do whatever is best for his young son, yet too weak to carry out his intentions. With his weather-beaten face,

workingman’s hands and open-mouted simplicity, one forgets the other dignified roles this great actor has played over the years, going back to the early films of Ingmar Bergman. At the end of the 155minute film, it is time for Pelle to move on, but it is too late for the frightened father, to again set out for new fields. Nexo’s books follow Pelle through youth and adult life, when he becomes a trade unionist and labour leader. Perhaps, August already has plans to put these adventures on to

celluloid. For connoisseurs of fine film, “Pelle the Conqueror” is not to be missed. Its many international awards include the Palme d’Or for best film at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival, and this year’s Academy Award and Golden Globe for best foreign-language film. The Academy, which has given us some outstanding films in recent weeks (“Wings of Desire,” “Salaam Bombay”), is now rounding off the year with what is bound to be the best for 1989.