Jerusalem

Billie August offers a compelling visualization of Selma Lagerlöf's novel "Jerusalem." The narrative evokes the evangelical millennialism that in 1896 compelled Swedes from the village of Nas to leave their families and their land for Ottoman Jerusalem to await the second coming of Jesus. The austere and beautiful cold of Sweden contrasts to the austere and beautiful heat of Jerusalem; the stoicism demanded by the weather in the north is tested by the violence of disease, aridity and social ostracism in the south. These two disparate sites frame the love story of the protagonists, Gertrude (Maria Bonnevie) and Ingmar (Ulf Friberg), whose devotion to one another transcends conventional romance. The characters are complex. Their distinct weaknesses (Gertrude's febrile and pious imagination and Ingmar's passion for his land) thicken their mutual strengths—unselfish empathy and candid honesty. The villain in the piece is Hellgum (Sven-Bertil Taube), the born-again evangelical preacher who returns to his Swedish homeland from America as a dark shadow praying upon rifts in the religious fabric of the community. Selma Lagerlöf was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature. "Jerusalem," published in Sweden in 1901, depicted recent events with resonant sympathy. Billie August has succeeded in recovering that same compassion in his rendering of a now remote historical moment. Nevertheless, Hellgum's evangelical megalomania and the Holy City's violence so powerfully described in the film seem all too contemporary. Unfortunately, the simple human goodness also so powerfully represented in "Jerusalem" now seems quaintly out-of-date.

Between his two works (DAS GEISTERHAUS / The HOUSE of the SPIRITS // FRÄULEIN SMILLAS GESPÜR FÜR SCHNEE / SMILLAS SENSE OF SNOW) for CONSTANTIN producer Bernd EICHINGER, the Danish director Bille AUGUST fulfilled his dream and made this Swedish film based on a novella by the Swedish Nobel Prize winner for literature Selma LAGERLÖF.

It tells the story of a small community in Sweden at the end of the 19th century, which falls into religious madness and emigrates together to the Holy Land. The young lovers Ingmar (Ulf FRIBERG) and Gertrud (Maria BONNEVIE) also get caught up in the turmoil of this religious enthusiasm, which doesn't end well...

A quiet and impressive film that is rarely seen in German-speaking countries. I remember a TV broadcast sometime in the nineties.

Pernilla AUGUST, ACADEMY AWARD nominee Max von SYDOW and ACADEMY AWARD winner Olympia DUKAKIS can also be seen in other roles.

It is a curiosity to see a Swedish film because of its quality and performance of the actors/actresses. This one is directed by Bille August, the same one of the "House of the Spirits", "Pelle Erobreren" and "Les Miserables" (1998). The religiousness of the members of the Swedish community is here shown, who once decided to go and to establish themselves in Jerusalem. Interesting scenes are in the film, one of the most convincing one is when Ingmar had sex for the first time with his wife, it was the desire of the woman to have something until that moment forbidden by his husband for her. The morale of the film could be that a couple may be in love for long, but this does not mean that they necessarily will be married, other circumstances may change the way the things were going.

The film is based on a novel by Selma Lagerlof and itself is indeed a magnificent epic of a Scandinavian spirit, though not that naive in its approach as one finds in, say, some famous epic movies based on Scottish history. In my eyes the film is a revelation of a fragile human story, full of obstacles and hard days, proceeded by a careful, attentive eye, and smooth in a sense that the sequence of events do not overshadow each other but rather form a nice waving flow, thus sustaining intensity not in separate scenes but rather as a whole, where each moment is masterfully organized. Also, though dealing with difficult issues, the film sees people not as a collection of scenes of despair, but as a continuous spirit, worth of admiration after all.

If you want an entertaining film in the narrow sense then I suggest this is not the right one to choose and you might be disappointed. Else, go and see it, it is rewarding in a sense of how much attention and openness you can give to it, a film its director Bille August did not manage to overtake by now, despite his expensive Hollywood attempts.

Bille August is one of the world's best directors. He can get the most enchanting moments from his actors. And his "Jerusalem" is a very good example of it. Long uncut takes with only little dialog show intense and breathtaking acting skills from every actor/actress - especially Maria Bonnevie.

Examples of this are: The scene where Maria's character Gertrud is walking alone in the forest and has a vision of Jesus for the first time; and one of the last scenes in Jerusalem where she sits with her friend who tells her; "You have to forgive... otherwise you will never be able to love again." ...

If you want to see truly unique acting skills this is where you want to go.

Sadly it has not yet been released on DVD. I only have it on old VHS. Let us have a full special edition DVD soon please.