Jerusalem

A film set in a Swedish village and in Jerusalem. The place is Dalarna. The turn of the century. There is a farm. The Ingmar family has been there for generations. The father dies. His son Ingmar is to take the farm. Karin is his sister. She believes the farm is hers. Ingmar loves a girl. Gertrud is someone he has known since childhood. Money is needed to get the farm back. There is a way: to marry a rich girl. Ingmar does it. He does not tell Gertrud. From there the film moves to a second line. A preacher comes to the village. Hellgum leads a sect. He has come from America and makes a call. They will go to Jerusalem. A community will be founded there and the return of Christ awaited. Some of the villagers are persuaded. Land is sold. Houses are sold. Families split. Gertrud goes too. What the narrative is interested in is not religion but rupture: its idea is that a village splits in two and that both halves know they have lost the other. The Jerusalem section is hard. The climate is heavy, the money runs out, and illness starts. There is an order inside the community. Marriage is forbidden, property is held in common, and the decisions are Hellgum's. Gertrud breaks down there. Ingmar goes. To bring her back. There is a choice at the end. The source is Selma Lagerlöf's novel; she wrote it from a real event. At the end of the nineteenth century such a migration really took place from Sweden to Jerusalem and a colony was founded there. The production is large. It was shot in Sweden, Israel and Denmark. The running time is long; close to three hours. Bille August also cut it as a series. Maria Bonnevie, Ulf Friberg, Pernilla August, Lena Endre and Sven-Bertil Taube are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes Scandinavian period film and large-scale literary adaptation. Who it is not for: anyone looking for pace; the narrative is very long and its second half sits apart from the first.