Vonia I wanted to really like this. I really did. Luscious scenery, amazing long shots, admirable mise en scène, lovely cinematography. Excellent acting from the two main actors. First, the well known Max von Sydow as a frustratingly timid father that we somehow hate while loving. Through Sydow's skilled performance, we can see how much he loves his son, yet not enough to overcome his cowardliness. Then we have young Pelle, played by Pelle Hvenegaard. No, not a complete coincidence. The actor was actually named after the character he is playing; the film is based on Martin Andersen Nexø's 1906 novel by the same name, Volume 1/4. Maybe this motivated the actor to give such an impressive debut performance. Aside from all this, however, the sum is less than its parts. This coming of age story has very little humor and even less moments to truly smile during. One terrible thing after another, the only predictable thing being that something else bad or worse is sure to come next. I have never been one to demand or even ask for fairy tale endings. Indeed, I actually appreciate the more realistic examinations of life. Unfortunately, there is a right way to do this and a wrong way to do this, and somehow "Pelle the Conquerer" fell short. During the course of the film, young Pelle is tormented by his schoolmates and humiliated by the apprentice overseer; a girl gives birth to her employer's son's bastard child and is dragged off to prison for murdering it; the son, who really killed the baby, sacrifices himself while trying to rescue a ship in a storm; some new emigrants turn up frozen to death in a boat, the local mutant halfwit lets Pelle whip him with stinging nettles for half a crown; the only rebellious farmhand gets bashed in with a rock and turned into a shuffling retard; the landowner's miserable wife lobs her husband's penis (Yes, you read correctly); Lasse thinks he will have a cushy berth married to a comfortable widow but her husband comes back alive; the halfwit runs away to the sideshow; the schoolmaster drops dead in class and Pelle finally decides enough is enough and leaves through the snowy wastes to an indefinite future chronicled in three more books and presumably future films. Except there are no other films; only the books.The result is a film that was not paced well, with many what the ? moments and a whole lot of depressing ones. The good did not outweigh the bad in this film that could have been far better.

paul2001sw-1 The harshness of life for immigrant agricultural labourers in 19th century Scandinavia is the subject matter of this film by one-time Bergman acolyte Bille August; and in places, it's every bit as depressing as it sounds, though livened by moments of black humour. Pelle, a young boy, is supported by, but increasing supports, his aged, and somewhat self-pitying father; the dynamic of their relationship is nicely conveyed, although the semi-idiot status of all the peasantry limits the subtlety of what can be conveyed. While it's welcome to see a costume drama that engages in no prettifying, personally I preferred August's 'The Best Intentions', based (in fact) on Bergman's early life, whose middle class setting provided a more sophisticated take on the nature of hardship.

ralphdl I saw this film in the theater when it was released and it has always stayed with me.From the first scene that opens like a Danish or Dutch oil painting to the last scene when the father says goodbye to his son in the depths of winter knowing he will never see him again….this film is indeed a masterpiece.Every scene is a painting and Max Von Sydow and Pelle Hyenegaard are perfect. The character actors, if in fact they were actors, were sometimes disturbingly authentic.The story is simple. A father searching for a new wife to take care of himself and especially his son while at the same time struggling to survive in very difficult times made even more difficult by the relentless weather. This is not an upbeat film by any means. It is, however, a triumph of spirit and the love of a father for his son and the son's realization that he has to leave and his father cannot come with him. A new life for the worn out father is not possible in the new world. He accepts that only his young son can have the chance that they cannot have in Denmark…he turns and walks away.You will never forget this film.

jzappa Bille August's passionately directed epic, set in Denmark at the beginning of the twentieth century, uses its beginning, a humbling of our protagonists' dreams, in an interesting way. Through the seasons that follow during a long year on a hellish farm, the very young title character's decrepit old father's idealistic vision malleates and stays stubbornly alive inside him, even though life seems stacked to punish him for his hope of a better life.Life on the farm is defined by the land, the seasons, and the personalities of the people who live there. The owners, the Kongstrups, only sporadically appear. They live in a big manor house far removed, angled at a position of power from the barns, stables and farm buildings, and Mrs. Kongstrup spends her agonizing days drinking while her despicably proud husband chases tail, with no shame, not even about the one hapless wench who appears at his front door time and again with their illegitimate child. In the laborers' quarters, life is the bullying of the manager, who ascertains weaknesses in his farm hands and feels only inclined to exploit them. Modeling himself after him is the insecure trainee, a bully compensating atop his high horse who feels particularly fulfilled in tormenting Pelle.Pelle is played by an impressive young boy, but the film's real star is Max von Sydow, that masculine brick house of vitality and frankness, who rivals Brando in the natural practice of never resonating a trace of visible acting, of not appearing to be, not acting, but being absolute and guileless even in complex and heavy-handed scenes. Von Sydow's work in the film has been honored with an Academy Award nomination for best actor, well deserved, particularly after a distinguished career in which he stood at the center of many of Ingmar Bergman's greatest films. But there is not a bad performance in the movie, and the young actor, Pelle Hvenegaard, is quite convincing, having been literally born to play this part, as in real life he was named after the character in the original novel. When another actor calls to you while the cameras are rolling, and your real name is not your character's, that is a basic and obvious psychological obstacle. When that actor calls your real name in the same circumstance, it is a gift.The film is an absorbing entertainment because it is a richness of events. There are scenes of punishingly taxing toil in the fields and the stables, under the eye of the Manager. Invigorating friction between the Manager and a defiantly free-spirited worker. The chicanery in the mansion, where Mrs. Kongstrup wrests a distinctly caustic revenge on her psychologically abusive philanderer of a husband. The heartbreak of a farm worker, who has fallen in love above her class. Most of all, for me, there are so many great movies that give us heart-swelling mother-child relationships, and here is a tear-gushing father-child one.