Sweet Land

[tkboxer]

I did a cover and label for this in January after seeing the film. Its a very enjoyable movie that has just been released on video

Here is one reviewers comments:

A heartfelt work of radiant simplicity and plainspoken eloquence, Sweet Land offers viewers a lovely reprieve from overproduced, marketing-driven studio schlock. Sensitively written and directed by Ali Selim, making his feature filmmaking debut, this elegiac, generation-spanning portrait of a farming family in rural Minnesota shimmers with understated warmth, intelligence, and ravishing pictorial beauty.

Inspired by Will Weaver's acclaimed short story "A Gravestone Made of Wheat," Sweet Land shifts back and forth between today, 1968, and 1920 to depict the Torvik family's abiding bond with the Minnesota prairie they call home. Following the death of his grandmother Inge, Lars Torvik (Stephen Pelinski) must decide whether to keep or sell the family farm. Torn between a very lucrative offer and the land's hold on his family, Lars recalls his grandfather's death in 1968, when Inge (Lois Smith) first told him (played as a teenager by Patrick Heusinger) about her inauspicious arrival in Minnesota, circa 1920. Since World War I is still painfully fresh in their memories, the locals, most notably Minister Sorenson (John Heard), are immediately wary of Inge (now played by Elizabeth Reaser), a beautiful German immigrant without official immigration papers. Nor does she get off to a promising start with Olaf Torvik (Tim Guinee), the taciturn Norwegian farmer she's supposed to marry.

Thankfully, she forms an immediate bond with Olaf's best friend, Frandsen (Alan Cumming), and his down-to-earth wife, Brownie (Alex Kingston), who open their home to her, even as they struggle to make mortgage payments to Harmo (Ned Beatty), an arrogant local banker. Although she's grateful for Frandsen and Brownie's friendship, Inge is determined to make a go of her life with Olaf. Over time, despite the objections of Sorensen and others in the community, these two strangers fall in love while working the fields of Olaf's farm—the very land that their grandson Lars will contemplate selling, decades later.

Exquisitely filmed by cinematographer David Tumblety, who captures the austere beauty of the Minnesota prairie with vivid, painterly effect, Sweet Land is a quietly powerful and moving drama graced with uniformly excellent performances, including a mercifully subdued Cummings, who's all too often a smarmy presence who can make your skin crawl. Meanwhile, Guinee (How to Make an American Quilt) does a particularly fine job of revealing the romantic longing beneath Olaf's stoic façade. Sweet Land, however, ultimately belongs to Reaser (The Family Stone) and Smith, a veteran character actress still going strong 51 years after making her debut in East of Eden (1955). Speaking most of her lines in German or heavily accented English, Reaser imbues the young Inge with a captivating mixture of vulnerability, integrity, and daring, whereas Smith plays the older Inge as a resilient, philosophical survivor, finding solace in the land in the wake of Olaf's death.

Although Selim displays an overall impressive command of the medium in his first feature-length film, he makes a few, albeit extremely minor, missteps, most notably in regard to the rather murkily defined character of Sorensen. Otherwise, Sweet Land is an exceptional film. It's a model of nuanced storytelling reminiscent of both Terence Malick's Days of Heaven (1978) and Richard Pearce's Heartland (1979), and it establishes Selim as a filmmaker to watch.

— TIM KNIGHT

http://www.sweetlandmovie.com/clips.htm
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