Dag Hammarskjöld

Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings
In the point of rest at the center or our being. we encounter a world where all things are at rest in the same way, Then a tree becomes a mystery, a cloud a revelation, each man a cosmos of whose riches we can only catch glimpses. The life of simplicity is simple, but it opens to us a book in which we never get beyond the first syllable.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Sweet Land

Sweet Land exudes the rhythms of rural life in 1920 and accurately conveys the intensity and desperation of the immigrant (undocumented) experience.

Beautiful, spirited, and citified Inge , who grew up in Norway but speaks only German, arrives on the dappled plains of Minnesota toting a Victrola but without her papers, so when she connects with Olaf , the dour, strapping Norwegian farmer it has been arranged for her to marry, the two aren’t allowed to go through with the ceremony. Speaking German, she is suspect with Americans living in a flyover state who believe they are still at war.

What papers arrive state that Inge is a socialist which further encourages the local minister in his refusal to perform the marriage. As the locals follow his lead and ostracize the bewildered Inge, we’re reminded that anti-immigrant sentiment and economic depression is hardly new in America.

Instead, they coexist in an awkward limbo, these two end up frequently in each other’s company and this film provides us the pleasure of watching perfect strangers fall in love.

Recommended.

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