The New Land

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RedApple A Nov 29 In what I’m about to write, I’ll treat Utvandrarna and Nybyggarna as a single film. What makes them special is the way Troell turns nature into art without ever separating the characters from it—and still allows them to retain full emotional and dramatic presence. I’m not sure if a comparison is necessary, but if we look at Malick’s films—especially Days of Heaven—we see that although he transforms nature into art with unmatched mastery, his human figures often remain flat elements within that landscape. I don’t think this is a failure; I believe it’s a deliberate stylistic choice. The same goes for Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, one of my favorite films by one of my most respected directors. Visually, it’s flawless, but its characters often feel like figures arranged inside a painting. I have no doubts about Kubrick’s or Malick’s brilliance, but Troell gives me something I don’t get from them: he never submerges his characters beneath the weight of natural beauty, never turns them into objects—yet he sacrifices nothing of nature’s aesthetic power. Because of this, I see these films, and Troell himself, as an underappreciated peak. I don’t have concrete evidence for this, but I genuinely believe Troell directly or indirectly influenced Malick, Klimov, Kubrick, and many others whose work I haven’t explored deeply enough yet. Maybe it’s only speculation, but it doesn’t change the fact that Troell remains astonishingly underrated. See more Alec B 01/10/2024 Just as unflinching as "The Emigrants" but there's more of an opportunity to experiment with style (especially during a harrowing flashback sequence). Also while it does temper the hopeful ending of its predecessor this movie still finds moments of joy. See more Jonah Sage D 12/17/2023 Had no idea what I was going into watching this, knowing nothing about it other than that Liv Ullman and Max von Sydow and it was set in the 1850s. Wow, what a movie! Highly recommended. See more Dom 07/21/2023 The film is very boring. It kind of goes into the stereotypes of a immigrant's story to America stretched out for the course of a long three hours, six hours if you include the first film. The dragging out of the story is a problem that continues from the first film, but this film has even less world building than the already scant worldbuilding there was in that film. Like the first movie, this film also had a lot of potential: they could have done a Civil War story, industrialization story, high society costume story, a story about the next generation, but nope, it's mostly about the same characters struggling, on a farm, just this time they are in America. And guess what? We get to watch these three main characters die of old age as big world events (the railroad, the Civil War, Lincoln), gets either sideshowed or doesn't appear at all. I also believe the director mishandled one of the main characters in this despite his personality being completely antithetical to his outcome (hint hint: the brother who went West). The going West part is very generic and was perhaps the worst part of the film. The experimentalism was very unnecessarily in the film that they might as well gone straight and the film might have been better off because of that. After the partial dredge of the first film, I completely expected to see our main characters rise up through high American society, but just like the first film, what a disappointment. The only reason I remember this film better than the first is because of just how bad the brother was written in this, really just Season 8 of Game of Thrones-esque. See more david f 08/05/2022 This continuation of The Emigrants chronicles the lives led in America by the Swedish farmers who left Europe behind in the earlier film. Again, this is a slog but patient viewers will be rewarded with a quiet, satisfying conclusion when Karl Oskar reaches the end of his long, fruitful life. See more 09/28/2021 Just as unflinching as "The Emigrants" but there's more of an opportunity to experiment with style (especially during a harrowing flashback sequence). Also while it does temper the hopeful ending of its predecessor this movie still finds moments of joy. See more Read all reviews

The New Land

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