Change Your Image
vikinges
Reviews
Mendel (1997)
definitely not a comedy
I've seen this film billed as a comedy about a Jewish family's post-war adjustment to Norway. However, this is a very poignant film, filled with chilling flashbacks to the Holocaust. I would never take a child to see this film.
The child protagonist's struggle to define himself as a Jew in Norway is challenging, charming, and heart-rending all at once. His nightmares are powerful and genuinely terrifyingly.
Certainly most Norwegians come across as unsympathetic evangelizers in this film. Was this what Jewish refugees really met when they came to post-war Noray, I wonder? It is interesting to hear the child's language gradually become Norwegian.
The family's hidden secret is telegraphed from the very beginning of the film. So when it's revealed, my reaction was "so what?" The interactions between Mendel and his older brother were incredibly powerful, the real stuff of sibling rivalry, rage, betrayal, and powerful love.
Kristin Lavransdatter (1995)
waited for years to see this
I always wondered if anyone could do justice to Undset's great trilogy.
Liv Uhlman brings us the flavor of medieval Norway, where Christianity still battles older forces and beliefs. She gives us a radiant but guilt-ridden Kristin not far off the mark from the character in Undset's books.
The architectural details, costumes and various artifacts around the farm seem just right for the era.
I felt disappointed when the film ended as I was eager to see the subsequent development of Kristin's character we see in the second and third volumes of Undset's trilogy. One can only hope that these, too, will come in time.