The New Land

Karl Oskar and Kristina, emigrants from Sweden, find a piece of land in Minnesota and settle. First the forest has to be cleared, then a house built, then the first winter survived. As the years pass the children multiply, some die, and Kristina never comes to regard the place she arrived at as her own. Jan Troell shot it as a single production together with The Emigrants, adapted from Vilhelm Moberg's novels, and served as director, cinematographer and editor. The story holds the cost of settlement and the dispossession of Native people in the same frame. Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann star. It was nominated for the foreign film Oscar. Who it is for: viewers who like Nordic classics and stories of emigration. Who it is not for: anyone without patience for length and pace.