MovieChat Forums > To verdener (2008) Discussion > Notes on user comments

Notes on user comments

posted 15 years ago by pbn
3 replies | jump to latest

Sometimes when you read IMDb user comments you really want to answer back. So here it goes. Spoilers.

Turfseer's review complains that there is too little character detail and uses this to categorize the film as melodrama:

One notices that certain characters are underdeveloped in this movie--particularly weak portraits include the older brother who has been expelled by the family for leaving the sect as well as the mother, who moves out of the family home after her husband has an adulterous affair. One never feels that we get to know these characters as fully realized people at all--they're just there to further the plot along [...] The same thing can be said for Sara's boyfriend. We learn that he's a musician but we never find out anything else about him. What about the father? He works as a hotel clerk and that's it [...] As this is a melodrama, complex issues are often reduced to formulaic, black and white scenarios. Hence, Sara's decision to leave the sect almost seems preordained. Similarly, Sara's brother's decision to rejoin the sect is designed to shock but his actions are never really explained.

It's an interesting point, but I am not convinced. I feel that I need to know all I need about the characters. The brother left because of his conscience and outlook, but ends up lonely and isolated to a degree that he cannot bear. We may think it should be possible to find friends or build a life, but he isn't strong like Sara turns out to be. I'm not sure why additional character detail would necessarily turn this into a better movie since everything needed to understand the characters is in my opinion already there. It may be an issue of wanting everything to be more clear, more spelled out in dialogue.

Popdrome's review is the one I am most in tune with:

Sara, in the end, makes a far from diminutive choice, a choice for a worldly life - eventually even breaking all attachments; her family, her boyfriend and ultimately, Jehova.

Worldly choice is a great phrasing. It may require some thought why it is that Sara and Teis don't seem to end up together. I suppose in the end her choice is based on her conscience and not merely her young love. Her choice is to go into the world and build her own life. But I'm also troubled by one of this reviewer's conclusions:

The best thing this movie achieves, is it never judges. There's no "good" or "bad" when it comes to religion. The Jehova's are portrayed unbiased, not overly sympathized, not threatening. Every decision Sara and her family have to make is difficult, complex. Yet it's far from depressing. In fact all in all this ends up to be a very positive movie. Life has changed, life goes on. We all choose what we think is good for us.

True in part, but come on: The brother chooses to go back out of weakness and anxiety to people who have coldly shunned him and condemned him. His sister is forced to choose between happiness and seeing her younger siblings grow up. There is good and bad when it comes to religion, and this film is determined to show it.

JBalslev's review is meaningful and poignant, but I have to point out its inconsistencies:

Sara and her family's lives are great and carefree before she meets Teis. Some people need something like religion to hold on to in order to get balance in their lives, and the film's portrayal of the family is so charming (yet presumably realistic) that you can't help but envy the relationship between the family members. There is a mutual love and unconditional solidarity and respect that I at least have rarely seen in non-religious homes.

The family seems great and carefree, but as events unfold there are soon revelations: The mother has serious doubts about the way her children are being raised. The children are taught to be cold and hurtful towards their brother, who has been shunned into isolation. The children are meant to have no aspirations other than to get other people to share their religion. There is surface and there are undercurrents. The family solidarity is surely anything but unconditional: It rests on the condition that a set of religious rules be upheld. The father confirms in a great scene that his love of God is greater than his love for his children.

[–] valleydreamin 15 years ago

This movie isn't about great cinema. It's about one girls life experiences. Whoever wrote this was making a point is all.

[–] HarveyManfriedjinnStJohn 14 years ago

This movie isn't about great cinema. It's about one girls life experiences.

One girl's life experiences can be made into a great film. Otherwise, why bother telling the story at all?

My computer beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.

[–] Malgorzata64 14 years ago

I got some things differently.

The brother left because of his conscience and outlook, but ends up lonely and isolated to a degree that he cannot bear. We may think it should be possible to find friends or build a life, but he isn't strong like Sara turns out to be.

I've seen the movie with Swedish translation and some sentences were omitted, so perhaps I've missed something due to this. So my understanding is:

- we do not know why her Sara's brother left. It's mentioned that he read a bad book and that he stood up to the elders, but we don't why and in what way. It could be just a teenager's rebellion for all we know.

- I would not make a definite statement on brothers weakness and Sara's strength. We do not know what she will do in the future. Perhaps after some years she will also feel like her brother and the story will repeat itself? In the movie she is portrayed as a strong character, but perhaps he brother was one too in his first days of living on his own.

True in part, but come on: The brother chooses to go back out of weakness and anxiety to people who have coldly shunned him and condemned him. His sister is forced to choose between happiness and seeing her younger siblings grow up. There is good and bad when it comes to religion, and this film is determined to show it.

The choices made by the family (choices almost given in forehand) might seem cold, but these are tough choices they feel compelled to make in situations that are not easy for them. They do what they feel they have to do and they certainly suffer - all of them, father, mother, siblings. I also don't see Sara's choice as a choice between happiness and seeing her siblings grow. I think it's deeper than that. She looses her faith and doesn't want to live a lie. The movie ends on an upbeat note, but the life from there on might be anything from happy to miserable. It's not like lives of those who don't believe or who have lost their faith are all cream and peaches.

For me perhaps the most interesting thing was her sister's reaction, which comes across as very reale. It's a reaction of a young girl who was taught to believe and who seems to have believed with all idealism of a young heart, and here she is let down by all the older members of her family: first her older brother, then her father, her mother, and at the end by her older sister. If the movie had a continuation I would be most interested to see how her life would develop.