Hamsun

Troell takes on Norway’s most acclaimed and controversial author, embodied by Max von Sydow in one of his strongest performances.

Knut Hamsun: national poet, Nobel Prize winner, and Nazi. Just as loved before the war as hated after. A film project not without controversy, but in 1996 it came to fruition based on a brilliant script by P. O. Enquist. Hamsun is an attempt to conceptualize a genius’s incomprehensible actions and to bring to life a man behind the myths. And in a catalogue of masterpieces, the film still stands as one of Troell’s foremost. The visual poet is recognizable, yet Troell presents one of his most talkative films as the cynical remarks (Enquist!) hail down between the spouses Knut and Marie Hamsun. Max von Sydow and Ghita Nørby are matchless and were both awarded with the Guldbagge for their role interpretations.

• Andreas Degerhammar