Review of Hamsun (1996) by Edward K — 07 Sep 2012

I'm an admirer of Hamsun's brilliance as a writer based on his novel Hunger which is still one of the most powerful stories that I have ever read. I'm also slightly familiar with the controversy surrounding his views during the Nazi occupation of Norway and Jan Troell's film Hamsun gave me a better appreciation for those events.

The film moved too slowly for me but I believe that it did justice to representing complex and difficult personal choices within the context and uncertainty of WW II rather than as if it were an indictment of personal choices made during a battle of good vs.

evil based on the luxury of today's retrospective. Nonetheless, I still hold Hamsun's literary works in high regard even though his character has been judged to be flawed. To those familiar with Max von Sydow's dynamic portrayals and incisive presence on the screen in Ingmar Bergman's films, his presentation of a brilliant but confused Knut Hamsun as an old man might seem diminished in regard to those talents but it was certainly appropriate to the character and the story of this film.