Review of Sweet Land (2005) by Hannah A — 01 Jun 2007

I saw this at the Waterfront Film Festival in Saugatuck, Michigan.

Now that I think about it, this was actually a good movie. At the time while watching it, it felt long and kind of slow, but looking back, I guess it was the right approach. Directed by Ali Selim and starring Tim Guine, Elizabeth Reaser, and Alan Cumming, it's about a woman, Inge from Norway immigrating to the US in the 1920 and staying on a farm in Minnesota. She doesn't speak much English, so a lot of the time she's adjusting to the surroundings and trying to make herself useful. She's set to marry Olaf (Guine) one of the farmers. The two are both pretty quiet, so it's nice to see their relationship blossom.

The scenery is excellent, filmed on location in Minnesota. It's told in a flashback of a flashback. In present time a man is sitting next to his grandmother's bed as she dies. He remembers when he was younger and was at his grandfather's funeral. He and his grandmother were sitting and she told him of the story that is the film. It sounds like an out of place set up, but it actually fits quite nicely.

This movie gets better over time, and though at the time while watching it it didn't seem very memorable, afterwards I found that I really enjoyed it. Give it a chance.