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This film covers the last seventeen years of Norway's Nobel winner Knut Hamsum. Revered as a patriarchal figure to Norway, Hamsun unwittingly became a spokesman for Nazi Germany's propaganda machine as Hamsum was seduced into believing that Norway would hold a special place in Europe after Hitler united it.
Hamsum's misguided support was fueled from his hatred of England which blockaded food shipments during WWI. He hated everything the English stood for with what seemed to be rather good reasons: their unbridled imperialism and the way they treated enemies and their conquered in India and South Africa. He willingly spoke against England hoping for their crushing defeat at the hands of Germany. Hamsun's wife became inspired by Quisling and other Nazis who were careful to explain how very important a woman's place was in national socialism. She became inflamed with the spirit and toured Germany doing readings and speaking on the behalf of Knut with her own words. At the end of the war both he and his wife were arrested and it was only then that he became aware of the Holocaust and all the Nazi's evil outside Norway.
Von Sydow does his usually great job and ages quite a bit in Hamsun's last years. His tumultuous relationship with his wife was figured prominently in his last years and his relationship with his children was nearly non-existent.
This is a historians film that relies heavily on building the characters of Knut and Marie. Pensive and sometimes tedious it has its place as a film of historical merit.
2 hrs 34 mins
Share a bowl of grits with someone you love tonight.
Follow Ups:
What an excellent book.
Given the choice between Communism and Nazism, many Scandanavians (intellectual or otherwise) veered towards Nazism. That all Scandanavians fought against the Nazis is similar to the myth that all French were in the Resistance. In fact, a lot of continental Europeans, if given the choice between Communism and Nazism, would have chosen the latter (there were even some English who joined SS foreign legions - driven by hate of Communism rather than amity with Nazism).
Hamsun's unwavering belief in the individual drove him towards the Nazi view of the world. I can still forgive him though because he's always been my favourite writer. I wish he could have had the moral fortitude of Thomas Mann (my second favourite writer); his place in the firmament of great writers would then have been unassailable. On the other hand, he may not have given us his great works if he had been like someone else.
I find the writers who "chose the wrong side" during that period fascinating, such as Francis Stuart, T.S. Eliot, Ernst Junger.
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