(Full director's cut via Criterion blu-ray)
One of the more fascinating and often miserable humanist epics I've ever encountered in all my years on God's green earth (not miserable in how one feels, just how so much goes so badly for the characters), with Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann always completely vulnerable and pained and courageous in their performances (courageous as far as going beyond what I imagine Jan Troell asked for in anguished hardship after anguished hardship for these peoeple).
So, of course I loved it, though the first third when they're still in Sweden, and it takes some time to warm up to the supporting characters like the younger brother and his friend (almost like Swedish discount Hobbits to me), is not as quite as powerful and harrowing as the other two thirds... which isn't to say it isn't bloody bleak as it is!
What Troell emphasizes so strongly above all else is Realism, but it's still a Theatrical and sort of stylized realism. Real Naturalism wouldn't be so affecting and existentually a continual punch in the guts, and he didn't cast his film (save I assume for the children) with non-professionals as it isn't quite to the level of Neo Realism exactly, though it has the sensitivity and intimate attention to details of how to get by on this or that crust of bread or how this or that person can suddenly get sick and get close to (or just) Die. He has two of the towering furnaces of Acting Craft at his direction, and whether he took them as far or further than Ingmar Bergman did is hard to say, but he gets some of their most riveting, heartbreaking embodiments.
It's an Epic story, but what makes the Emigrants so unique is that Troell's camera and editing (the shot/cut hinself) makes faces and places, the nature all around them, all matter just as equally, and that one shouldn't overwhelm the other. This isnt to say Epics like this weren't being made a good deal in the 1970s - the other nominee for best picture (and winner) at the Oscars, the Godfather, is a prime example of the interior struggles and decisions of characters making for the "Epic" scope more than cinematographic prowrss - but in The Emigrants there's a sense that the people of these farms in rural Sweden can barely get by by the skin of their teeth in the best of times, and the series of unfortunate (at best) and crippling and devastating (at worst) leads them to have to leave.
He shows the cruelty of a place, and the ironic beauty of a place like the Atlantic Ocean, but it's not meant to inspire awe rather to make it completely (or mostly) uninspiring, like... oh, there's the ocean, there's the farm land that won't grow a damn thing, there's the cows that won't make milk anymore. And the God fearing part of it? It's almost like they can't not be in this environment: devastation and desolation, of the soul, of the family, of one's place in the world and universe, is always in Flux and at stake, just by nature of what can kill you via virus and poverty and sickness in the 19th century. No wonder Kristina breaks down and thinks she will die at one key point, I wouldn't last five minutes!
For the first third or so, I felt like Max von Sydow's Karl had more complexity or just more to do, but that's mostly because he had the conflict of "I keep having kids, I keep having a horrible situation with this farm, the people around me are either uncaring or desperate or full of rage or all the above" but he still is a decent and good hearted person, and meanwhile Liv Ullmann's Kristina is "don't blaspheme God, don't be mean to me, why do you say that about having another child" etc, and I was worried that, much as Ullmann was giving it 10010% as always and found the dignity and pain and the confounding mix of the two to play for her so well, it wasn't as deep a character as I'm used to seeing her get with Ingmar.
But then once it's on the ship and everything after, even (maybe more so) as she is in great pains and sickness and even contends with things like lice, it occurred to me, I'm dumb, Kristina is a great and complex character and it mostly took the story to take all the drastic turns for her to come to the fore as the most captivating person in all of this (and there are many). The Emigrants has a way like that in general of having so much room to breathe as a narrative, with the sort of sweep and time to get to know everyone on the minutae and humdrum aspects of daily life, that the film becomes more impactful as it goes along, as it has to.
This isn't always the case for me with immigrant stories; I liked, say, James Gray's the Immigrant or El Norte or to an extent Amrrica America, but they sometimes get held back by certain story turns or melodrama that didn't always land for me (or got so bleak as to be oppressive). The Emigrants is long, possibly too long in its full director's vision, with a couple of tangents I'm sure weren't missed that much on its shorter American release in the 70s, and yet I'm not sure what I would cut out if I were in a position of an editor.
It's one of those times where plot doesn't matter so much as the depth of feeling you need with the characters, and after a while it's like the film is like getting to know a family (and on a personal level I've had experiences with immigrants in my life who just wanted to make good on what America promises at its shiniest and that struck me as honest about the film too).
And by the end of the film, there is, if just for a moment, peace and beauty in the nature shots and landscapes... for a moment, things seem like they could be okay. Or as someone on Letterboxd said: it's Oregon Trail: the movie.
