Lovely Swedish Farm Romance

noralee

"There's nothing new Under the Sun (Under solen)" is the titular closing line for this lovely Swedish farm romance.

And yeah it does draw on familiar territory -- the mail-order bride type Westerns like "Rachel and the Stranger," the woman with a secret who appears in beautiful rural scenery in "Days of Heaven," combined with the threatening, non-stop talking intruder as in "Smooth Talk" (who the entire audience would have gladly murdered as we laughed uproariously when his ironic fate was sealed).

Set in 1955 with some more sexual frankness than those after all non-Swedish earlier movies, "Under the Sun" is grounded in the realism of the lead characters, as a man and woman in their '30's who understand life, people and most of all themselves.

But my friend and I found we kept thinking the exact same things: why the heck did those horses need to be taken all the way to that scenic water hole all day? Couldn't they just drink water from a trough? And is it really summer in Sweden all the time?

(originally written 8/25/2001)

score 7/10

noralee 20 December 2005

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1243239/