Cracks me up every time. I'd say Max von Sydow performance was a little over-the-top in so instances. Anyone else find him unintentionally funny?
shareThe Abner Hale character in the book is even worse; an ignorant, narrow-minded religious maniac who needs to be kicked repeatedly in the face.
shareMost of his character's "imposing his will upon others" was way over the top making me wonder if Von Sydow had a problem with it, because he often came off as comical in many ways.
His character did do a few decent acts, too little, too late. He tried to protect the young women from sailors carrying diseases they had no immunity from, although that wasn't his reasons, and trying to stop the plantation owners from stealing their lands (but that comes a bit late).
His character was so....implacable, so self righteous.
By the end of the film we see him as a wiser, kinder man. This comes at the expense of so many people's happiness, including his wife who eventually died too young because of his pig-headedness, leaving his children without a mother. All that was the cost paid (by others) for imposing his strict, unbending dogma upon everyone around him.
I may see him at the end of the film, and want to feel sympathy, but stop myself, adding up all the wasted lives, all the unhappiness he brought to paradise. I can only see him as a pathetic waste of human potential. His transformation to a real human being was too little, too late.