Hamsun (1997)
Picture: C
Sound: C+ Extras: C Film: B
Max Von Sydow plays Nazi-loving Nobel Laureate Knut Hamsun
in Jan Troell’s 1997 biography Hamsun, though it focuses on his adult
life until death. Though we have seen
the story of persons whose wrong decisions during WWII come back to haunt them
or ruin their lives, I give Troell and Sydow credit for going out of their way
to tell the story the long way.
That is what makes the film run 154 minutes via Per Olov
Enquists’ screenplay and an attempt is made to make this into an epic. However, though it never gets boring and
Sydow is very convincing in the role, the film retreads many other things (like
uses of music) and conventional pacing that stop it from having the impact it
might have had if it did not restrict itself to a surprisingly narrow sense of
chronology and history. The other
actors are just as convincing, while production design and location work add to
the authenticity. Norway has many
stories yet to be told and this is a key one, but the country might not be
enough of a character here and Hamsun ultimately is just a solid film
worth a look that somehow manages to justify its exceptional length.
The letterboxed 1.66 X 1 image really uses the entire 1.33
x 1 standard frame when you include permanent subtitles. This is a few generations down from the
detail and color limits, but the cinematography by director Troell is not bad,
sometimes reminding one of the films of Bergman or Szabo. The theatrical sound listing on the end credits
is Dolby SR, the great analog Spectral Recording system the company introduced
in 1987, while their records list the film as Dolby Digital. The Digital could simply be a last minute
4.1 or 4.0 configuration in AC-3 compression.
The DVD sound is Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo with no major surrounds of any
kind, so SR a generation or two down sounds more like it. Extras include stills, trailers for other
first Run WWII titles and text on the director, cast and Hamsun himself.
- Nicholas Sheffo
