Agneta Pruetz Movies
- 1991
- NR
Based on a true story, the bleak period piece Oxen was co-written and directed by Ingmar Bergman's longtime cinematographer Sven Nykvist. In the small village of Småland in the late 1860s, Helge Roos (Stellan Skarsgård) works as a farmer on an estate belonging to Svenning Gustafsson (Lennart Hjulström) and his wife (Liv Ullmann). Plagued by a terrible famine, Helge illegally kills one of the Gustaffson's last oxen so his own family can eat. He and his wife, Elfrida (Ewa Fröling), feel guilty about it, but the meat keeps them alive through the winter. When he tries to sell the hide in the spring, a clergyman (Max Von Sydow) finds out and encourages him to confess. The judge sentences Helge to a life of manual labor at the state prison for his crime. When he is finally pardoned and released after six years, he returns home to Elfrida to find out that she has been supporting the family by performing sexual services, which has resulted in the birth of another child. In the 1970s, Von Sydow and Ullmann appeared together in a set of films also dealing with the Swedish famine in Jan Troell's The Emigrants and The New Land. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stellan Skarsgård, Ewa Fröling, (more)
- 1971
- PG
Director/writer Jan Troell's expansive saga deals with the Larsen family, who during the 19th century famine in Sweden emigrate to the more fertile fields of Minnesota. With painstaking detail, the director follows the Larsens as they make the perilous (and, to some of their fellow immigrants, fatal) journey by foot, steamer, train, and paddle boat. The film, which originally ran 190 minutes but was pared down to 150 by its director for American consumption, earned Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Foreign Language Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Direction, and Best Actress (Liv Ullmann). The Emigrants was followed by a sequel, Nybyggarna ("The New Land"); both films have been edited together for TV release under the title The Emigrant Saga. The subsequent American TV series The New Land (1974) starred Bonnie Bedelia in the role created in The Emigrants by Liv Ullmann, and Scott Thomas in the patriarch role originated by Max von Sydow. In 1991, Sven Nykvist directed a "prequel" to The Emigrants titled The Ox. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Max von Sydow, Liv Ullmann, (more)
- 1969
Frustrating both to those who view this X-rated movie seeking a simple sex-flick, and those looking for an art-piece, this movie is a bit of a spoof on both. The story concerns the Yugoslavian holiday of two toothsome Swedish girls. One of the girls, played by Maria Liljedahl, is (metaphorically speaking) a world-champion in the promiscuity sweepstakes, bedding men (and women) in great profusion. Somehow, the movie also manages to be about film reviewers and film directors. Variety) commented "...the film's inherently good visual and physical qualities are themselves dissipated in [the director's] cynicism, ennui, and involuted intellectual mirror tricks." ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gio Petre, Marie Liljedahl, (more)
- 1963
Bo Widerberg wrote and directed this domestic drama. Thommy Berggren is Anders, who works at a factory in Malimo, but dreams of being a writer. He lives with his parents in a poor section of the city. His father is an alcoholic whose desire for upper class respectability keeps him from working class employment, while his mother struggles as a washerwoman to earn enough money for the family's survival. Anders writes a first novel that is rejected by the publisher; he turns to the girl next door for sympathy and they fall in love. When she becomes pregnant and wants Anders to marry her, he sees his life unfolding like his parents' and has to decide whether to give up hope and raise a family or to head to Stockholm for a more hopeful future. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tommy Berggren, Keve Hjelm, (more)
