daoldiges I saw this film during it's original release almost 30 years ago and have held it in the highest regards ever since. I was curious to see it again and how it would hold up to the passage of time. I was very happy to find it as beautiful and inspiring as I did those many years ago, perhaps even more so. It's a truly beautiful film to look at. The stark landscapes, seasons, people, the farm and buildings, are all captured and expressed so naturally and lyrically. All of the performances are solid but the two leads are really great and generate a real depth to the story. As for the story itself, it's expressed with such simplicity that it feels poetic.

chaswe-28402 No relief in this one. No let up. The conqueror escapes to nothing, nowhere; a wintry, frozen and empty sea-shore. Max can act, no question. So can Pelle the boy. The direction consummates the never-ending grimness and daily grind of the emigrant labourer, paid 100 kronor a year, about £10. It's virtual slavery, though the bodies are not sold. These slaves are especially abused and exploited because they are foreign. Life continues, a living death.Undeniably effective, but who would want to watch this twice ? Joylessness squared. Unpunished rape, unwanted child-murder, bullying, crippling poverty, death and decay. An existential inferno, where hope is eventually abandoned. What benefit is to be gained from seeing this relentless, unrelieved misery ? I give it eight stars, because it's a powerful movie, but recommend no-one to watch it. One flaw: the boy's dubbed American accent was annoying. It was out-of-place. The only man capable of bringing a little lightness to the company, with his musical squeeze-box, gets bludgeoned into mindless inanity.

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.

Ismaninb Because of the similarities, I think it interesting to compare Pelle Erobreren with The Pursuit of Happiness (2006). In both movies we see a father/son relation. Both see father and son struggling to make a living. There it ceases.Almost all differences are in favour of Pelle. Will Smith' son is an annoying little Mr Know-all. Pelle is a real kid, learning life lessons the hard way. Will Smith embodies the American Dream - his movie is not interested in all the thousands, who fail. Von Sydow's Lasse Karlsson is one of those losers. Still he only wants a quiet old age. The Pursuit is a cheesy tearjerker, constantly we are reminded of all the bad luck, the set backs. The Pursuit rubs it in our face: Will Smith and son are soooo pitiful! Lasse and Pelle Karlsson are not pitiful at all. They don't have time for it, as they are too busy coping with their hard life.Consequently The Pursuit is a smooth movie, inevitably leading to its happy end. The spectator is expected to rejoice, after rooting for them. Being it so predictable, I could not. Pelle is not smooth at all. In fact the script is not very consistent. Quite a few sidelines are not fully developed, many characters remain vague. There are several open ends. That is the reason I don't give Pelle the full 10. But it is also true, that the fragmentary story far better paints real life, than all the Hollywood smoothness. We will never know, how far Pelle will get conquering America. Indeed, nor will his father.When comparing, there is no question about acting, cinematography and scenery. Pelle Erobreren shows, why European movies can be so superior to Hollywood stuff, notwithstanding the much smaller budgets. See The Pursuit and Pelle shortly after each other - you will see, what I mean.