Customer Reviews

The Emigrants [VHS]

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The Emigrants (and its sequal The New Land) and truly great films, and Liv Ullmann and Max von Sydow contribute two of their best performances ever. HOWEVER, what lame-brain decided to release this in VHS in an English-dubbed version ONLY. If any movie requires its native language, it's this one. A huge part of the movie's strength is created by the sense of how "foreign" these new arrivals were in the U.S. The movie literally makes no sense when the family finally makes it to the U.S. and the "Americans" don't understand them--even though in the ridiculously dubbed version they are all speaking English! It's also a travesty that they didn't use Liv Ullmann to dub her own voice (if they HAD to dub it)--and we all know she speaks English quite well. If you have the choice, get the laser disc version. At least it is in Swedish and subtitled. Let's hope the DVD version will not repeate the mistake of the videotape!

Oh wow.....to be honest, I disregarded the other reviews here because I wanted to see this movie again so badly. So, I convinced myself that it couldn't make THAT much difference dubbed instead of subtitles. Boy, was I wrong! It makes a very, very big difference in the authenticity of such wonderful movies.
Being of Swedish extraction from both my parents, I love to hear the beautiful lilt of the Swedish language in movies reproducing the lives of my ancestors. Though I cannot enjoy this version as I could a subtitled one, I will watch it until I can find the subtitled version for myself.

"The New Land"..... the same review applies....except that many years ago I bought the subtitled version for my father.....and I will borrow his rather than watch it dubbed!

Two beautiful movies; and they lose so much with English instead of Swedish words. As another reviewer said, it is just not believable to have a character speak fluent English through out a movie yet not be understood by other English speaking people!

Jan Troell's The Emigrants was released in the U.S. with 40 minutes cut out of it, so it has never really been seen in the States, thanks to Warner Brothers, who were too stupid to grasp the film's significance or, indeed, audiences' abilities to enjoy this 3-hour+ masterpiece. To make matters worse, the only version available is an execrable dubbed version. Even if Von Sydow and Ullmann were there to post-dub their own voices, it is an affront to this magnificent film, and to anyone with brains and taste enough to enjoy it unaldulterated by studio sabotage.

I only saw the Swedish version (the whole series) and I am aware that some of the movie was cut. However, I believe I still have something to say.

This movie is based on a novel by the Swedish author and historian Vilhelm Moberg. The novel is based on his research and is therefore very realistic and historically accurate. It is depicting the experience of Swedish emigrants in the 1840's or 1850's. The main characters are Karl Oskar and his wife Kristina but there are also many other interesting characters in movie, for example, Karl Oskars adventurous brother Robert who goes to California in the search of Gold.

I am a modern Swedish immigrant to the United States. However, emigrating today is much easier than emigrating in 1850. I am not just talking about the amazing hard ships and dangers that Karl Oskar and Kristina had to face, but the fact that they left everything behind. Their young daughter died in Sweden, but they had to visit her grave one last time to never see it again. Emigrating in 1850 meant that everything you ever known would become just a memory. Think about that a minute.

The homesickness of Kristina was a major theme of the movie. Kristina was desperately homesick despite the fact that Karl Oskar and her succeeded in building a better life for their children and grand children. Kristina probably would not have been as homesick if she had emigrated today.

I think this movie is interesting for Swedes and many others, but the movie really speaks to all those Americans whose forefathers came to America long ago, at a time when emigrating was an awesome choice and often a heroic act. I believe this movie will make it possible for many Americans to connect with their long dead immigrant forefathers.

Sweden is seen as the very model of a welfare state: modern, progressive, prosperous, manufacturer of sturdy and safe cars, inventor of the three-point seatbelt (with great public spirit and foresight ... not patented!), major exporter of advanced weapons systems, very attractive blondes, and a keen line in flat-packed home-assembly furniture. But Sweden was not always like that. The welfare state did not begin to develop into what it is today until the early 1930s, when the world-wide Depression following the Wall Street Crash of 1929 made its mark. Before then Sweden was primarily a pastoral country, slow to industrialize (even though the copper mines of Dalarna were then among the most valuable in the world), and as much the victim of famine and intolerance as anywhere else in Europe during the 19th Century.

Adapted from Vilhelm Moberg's novels, Utvandrarna is the story of Karl-Oskar Nilsson (Max von Sydow) and his family who, with others disillusioned with their infertile plot of land or seeking to escape religious intolerance and persecution, "emigrated to North America from the Swedish province of Småland in 1844. At that time the parish of Ljuder had 1,925 inhabitants. There were 254 farmers who owned their land, 92 tenant farmers, and 11 tenement soldiers. 39 persons were artisans. There were also 274 servants, 127 paupers, 60 cripples, 5 halfwits, 3 idiots, 3 whores, and 2 thieves. Four men governed the parish by virtue of their spiritual and temporal offices - the deacon of the church, the sheriff, the biggest landowner, and the churchwarden. It was the same in all the other parishes."

Beautifully filmed like a Timoteï shampoo advert (much like Bo Widerberg & Jörgen Persson's 1967 Elvira Madigan which entranced the eyes and ears), at times the film is both strangely hypnotic and a tedious grind. But Life was like that back then - no radio, television, Monopoly or Playstations, just too many mouths to feed (one of their children starves), bible-thumping pastors, dour expressions, bad soil, bad food, and morale-sapping, back-breaking labour for little or no gain. The enormity of the challenge awaiting Karl-Oskar Nilsson and his family on the plains of Minnesota becomes slowly apparent during the seemingly endless 10 weeks of the Atlantic crossing on an over-crowded sailing ship where seasickness, lice and melancholy took a further toll on those brave souls. After New York there were several more days of train travel, followed by more days on a river-steamer - along with more death. Until Karl-Oskar finds his 'promised land' ... and marks the tree to stake his claim.

Nybyggarna: "But that was just the beginning. The pursuit of the dream had led them to the strange yet fertile and abundant land. It remained for them to try to tame it, to learn to live in it, and - hopefully - to prosper with it. The story of those years, those years that were to change them from hopeful wanderers to dedicated settlers determined to play a vital rôle in the growth of a nation, is a story that describes America itself."

Although life is better in Minnesota than it ever was in Sweden, it is still not without searing heartache and agonizing sacrifice. Through trial (extreme summers and winters, the Santee Sioux defending their homeland against the encroaching white man during the Civil War, and ever-present melancholia) and tribulation (Karl-Oskar loses another infant child, his younger brother Robert to gold fever and disease, and his desperately homesick wife Kristina [Liv Ullmann] to one pregnancy too many), the tedious grind finally sees Karl-Oskar's surviving children reach adulthood, take over the finally-prosperous farmstead, but an aged Karl-Oskar himself alone, lonely, melancholic and thinking of the ole country he left behind 20 years earlier ...

If one can put aside the often too noticable dubbing, perhaps you, too, can feel this as solemn, forceful, nation-building ... and moving.

I bought this video for a research paper I was doing on Vilhelm Moberg, author of the four Emigrants novels. At any rate, I consider it a testament to the achievement of the Swedish actors that their performances managed to carry feeling, tension, and a spark of humanity although their voices had been taken away. I can't stand dubbed voices, so this is saying a great deal. At any rate, this is a fine movie, telling a fine story (read the books!), the only reason a star is missing is for the dubbing.

Such a shame, there is now a restored version available but they didn't bother to make it available to the rest of the world.
Why do they do this? Wouldn't they get back the investment of the restoration quicker if everyone could buy one????

Utvandrarna
PAL regioncode 2

Boxset with 3 DVD's - more than 6 hours, containing the Swedish movies based on the story Utvandrarna (The Emmigrants) by Vilhelm Moberg.

No English subtitels included only subtitles in Swedish, Danish, Finnish and Norwegian.

I ordered the Emigrants (and The Land) after seeing The Ox (which is excellent). I expected the Sweedish film with English sub-titles. Instead it used English dubbed voices. If the film were in the original format with the English sub-titles it would have been more interesting. The dubbing was poor and it was difficult to hear what was being said. When they finally did reach the shores of America it made no sense to have people asking questions in English to English speaking people and have them not understand. While it was probably a realistic representation of the Sweedish immigration to America, it was also very slow moving and often seemed disjointed -- especially in the first half of the film. Some of the dub-over dialogue was crude and sexually graphic and not appropriate for young children. If you really like this type of film you may enjoy this release. Still, I would recommend waiting for a release using English sub-titles -- I think it will greatly enhance your enjoyment of the film.

This timeless film shows how far the power of will of some human beings can reach under determined conditions and not precisely the most favorable ones .
Absorbing tale about a Swedish farmers family who , in the middle of the XIX Century to search in America their own place in the Promised Land .The multiple difficulties and the crude realism will let you astonished .
Max von Sydow that splendid actor and the radiant and talented Liv Ullman , Ingmar Bergman' s beloved couple actors make with Jan Troell a sublime masterpiece and obviously and unforgettable and spellbinding film a previous or next year both movies would have reminded for many people . Pitifully they were beaten by The Godfather I.
But the time will preserve the cinematographic memory in its right place..
This is a clear example who tals us about the greatness and the untamed spirit of the man against the fatality .
Gurdieff was asked in an interview if the man could change his destiny . He replied: The great men can do it , the rest definitively not .
These emigrants as well as Ludwig van Beethoven belong to the first category.

This movie shows a group of people starting out from Sweden to move to Taylor's Falls Minnesota. It gives some notion of what it must have been like to leave behind the known and head toward the unknown and all those vague promises of prosperity and freedom.

As a kid I heard some of the stories handed down from my great grandparents day about the trip over, and this film shows some of that. It does not show the mast of the ship cut off nor the voyage taking three months but it does show people dying on the way to their dream.

And it shows the survivors starting to make a new life when they finally arrive. Beautiful photography of the upper midwest in fall.