Stylish but barely mediocre overall

Instant Favorite.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

Faced with the prospect of a Norwegian film in English with a plethora of international actors, I should have seen the warning signs. For one, people speaking accented English to convey the sense of a foreign language has always annoyed me ("Zose are ze fekts, mein fuhrer!").This film isn't perhaps quite that awful, but the plot appears to have been written by the committee for Silly Twists together with the Fjord Tourist Board.Equally, the style of the film is all over the place: a smörgåsbord of genre-dipping ranging from horror and ghost-tale to melodrama, costume drama, sub-Ibsenesque family saga, Bergman-lite and god knows what else.Together these result in an utterly confusing accretion of episodes that usually end in death, or haunting, or both, but no clear directorial stance on how see either.What I'm missing is any kind of moral, aesthetic or conceptual centre. We must remember that the woman upon whom the film centres is responsible for several deaths, at least one of the premeditated. But is she mad? Is she hallucinating? Is she simply dreaming? Which brings us to the central character. Personally I'm all in favour of strong female roles but the one that this film serves up is a completely anachronistic projection of modern modes of behaviour onto a time where a woman would not have been able to do what Dina does without getting shut up in a nunnery or a madhouse at the very least.Shouldn't a film that shows a woman overcome adversity and male prejudice at least show some pretty effective adversity and male prejudice? For most of this film Dina rides roughshod over men and women alike (or unshod, depending upon the stable boy in question). It's as if her initial trauma is so overwhelming that the world simply makes way for her for the rest of her life. Fat chance.Therefore I'd have to recommend any discerning viewer to give this portentous, confused example of the international co-production a miss.

A powerful story, made weaker by excessive length and too many characters. Some of the secondary characters could have been eliminated to make the plot flow more smoothly. Having said this, I was tremendously impressed by Maria Bonnevie in the title role. Her face is florid, sensual, expressive of lust, sorrow and all the other emotions in this often violent woman's life. Mads Mikkelson as the grafting, unscrupulous Niels gives the other fine performance; his suicide takes all the life out of the story.Gérard Depardieu and Christopher Eccleston were added to the cast for star power, I suppose, but they don't mix well with the other players. Eccleston's character--Zhukovsky the anarchist--is just a jumble of historical clichés we can't become involved with.

I'm obsessed with this film. I've never seen it's equivalent in terms of sheer emotional intensity and the power of the acting,plot, scenery, everything. I'm very frustrated, because since I saw it at the Montreal film festival 2 or 3 years ago, I can find no trace of it in the USA. No DVD's, no local releases that I can find. I want to share this with all my friends. I particularly relate to Dina's fear of loss and abandonment, which fuels her frequent violent outbursts and influences all of her relationships. And her lover's final reassurance that he will leave her, but he will always come back to her. The only character (other than her tutor) who seemed able to both love and understand her, and who could potentially show her a way out of her tortured past. Her tutor's final letter to her was such a message of hope and love. I can't say enough about this film, I don't have the words. This film

I don't really like to write reviews but I've read the one for this particular movie and I can't let others read it and think the movie is as bad as it is accused of being.First of all I've read the book by Herbjorg Wassmo and there is a reason why the original dialog is "my momma left me",Dina is after all like a child.The film simply emphasizes the same aspects as the book.The acting is not at all bad,Maria Bonnevie is simply great,intense and embodies the exact spirit of the wild gray-eyed flamboyant teen.An 18-year-old woman with eyes as old as stones.If you have the opportunity to watch it I strongly recommend you do because it can change your perception on life.You find yourself asking do the people around me exist or is the world full of insipid people who I should look through? Dina's character is simply magnetic and you can't help not being attracted to her and hating those who get to be around her while you can't.I especially enjoyed the scenes where she plays the cello,seeing her hold it between her thighs,seeing her possess it like she does with everything from her horses to men.And some of the most enjoyable scenes are the ones where Dina is either in the presence of Lorch or Tomas,fascinating characters themselves each addicted to Dina in his own way.I loved this movie and I wouldn't recommend it if I wouldn't know you will too.