7.3 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
The end of the 19th century. A boat filled with Swedish emigrants comes to the Danish island of Bornholm. Among them are Lasse and his son Pelle who move to Denmark to find work. They find employment at a large farm, but are treated as the lowest form of life. Pelle starts to speak Danish but is still harassed as a foreigner. But none of them wants to give up their dream of finding a better life than the life they left in Sweden.
Starring: Max von Sydow, Pelle Hvenegaard, Björn Granath, Sofie Gråbøl, Lena-Pia BernhardssonForeign | 100% |
Drama | 9% |
Coming of age | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.87:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Danish: LPCM 2.0
English
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Mention “the immigrant experience” to many Americans, and they will no doubt almost automatically think of their own ancestors who traveled from some distant land to take up residence in the United States. But of course there are all sorts of other “immigrant experiences”, and a shorter journey from one Scandinavian country to another provides a foundational element to Pelle the Conqueror, the immensely beautiful and moving 1987 film from Bille August that won that year’s Palme d’Or and Cannes and, a bit later, the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Pelle the Conqueror is a rather long film, clocking in at around two and a half hours, but that perhaps undue length is not a real detriment and in fact helps to establish the slow turn of seasons that is part and parcel of farm life. That is where elderly Swedish father Lasse Karlsson (Max Von Sydow, also Academy Award nominated for this performance) and his young son Pelle (Pelle Hevenegaard, who should have been nominated for an Academy Award for this performance) end up, after traveling by ship from Sweden to the Danish island of Bornholm. Lasse almost instantly seems like a wounded soul, something that underlines what is soon revealed to be his hopes to find more secure employment in the pair's new location. The two are still struggling with the death of Lasse’s wife and Pelle’s mother, and there’s almost instantly a “you and me against the world” feeling from the pair, even before they disembark from the crowded ship to a town square where no prospective employers are exactly jumping to hire an old man with a young son.
Pelle the Conqueror is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Film Movement with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.87:1. This is a somewhat variable looking transfer, generally appearing nicely organic and with a lot of the more brightly lit outdoor material popping with some authenticity and good detail levels, but several other (mostly interior scenes) looking a bit rough at times, especially in terms of grain resolution (see screenshots 15 through 19 for a few examples of what I consider to be some of the less pleasing looking moments). This is touted as a 30th Anniversary restoration, but there's no indication as to what elements were sourced for the transfer. While much of the bountiful outdoor material looks nicely suffused and often even warm, there's a slightly blanched look to select scenes that I personally found to be a bit on the cool side, where flesh tones can look wan or even slightly purplish, and blacks can appear just slightly milky. Still, in decent lighting conditions fine detail is admirable on elements like what look like rough woolen outfits worn by several farmhands, or even the gorgeous outdoor acreage beyond the Kongstrup compound.
Pelle the Conqueror features an LPCM 2.0 track that is listed as being in both Swedish and Danish. The film is graced by a rather haunting, elegiac score by Stefan Nilsson which sounds full bodied and clear throughout the presentation. Dialogue and the many ambient environmental sounds of the farm are also rendered cleanly and clearly, and there are no age related signs of wear and tear.
Pelle the Conqueror features a wealth of finely wrought performances set against some of the most stunning if occasionally dreary Danish backdrops imaginable. Some of the subplots here are arguably a bit tangential, but the overall feeling here is one of authenticity and fine attention to authentic, heartfelt emotion in the sometimes rocky relationship between Lasse and Pelle. Video here encounters occasional hurdles, but audio is fine. The commentary by Peter Cowie is also detailed and interesting. Recommended.
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