The Bride Of Glomdal

Synopsis

Shot during a Norwegian summer, this romantic drama – about a wealthy farmer's daughter falling in love with a poor farmer's son, despite having been promised to a rich suitor she dislikes – includes room for comedy and action (most memorably a thrilling climax involving a torrential river). But Dreyer's inspiration was the pastoral films of Sjöström and Stiller, and it's the way he combines his expressive sense of landscape with an attention to delicate emotional nuance that makes the film so affecting.