Š-DR- ELVIRA MADIGAN de Bo Widerberg (1967) p10

29/07/2014 16:24 par tellurikwaves

A beautiful love story without the usual clichés.
9/10
Author: Lina Westman from Sweden
23 May 2007

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I'm not usually a fan of these pure-love-conquers-all type of films, but I really liked Widebergs "Elvira Madigan". It's funny to see how many Americans think of it as "slow" and "boring" because there are so few dialogs and you already know the end. Old Scandinavian movies kind of follows their own way of building a story, nowadays they follow the American style more, which isn't bad either, just different. But even though a movie is made in a different way than you are used to, it might be worth giving it a chance.

"Elvira Madigan" needs to be read between the lines, you have to notice all the details to see the beauty and the complexity of the story, and since it's so "slow" you get a lot of time to do that. The dialogs are very few, but they all mean something. I especially liked when Sixten talked to his friend about that the world could be just one straw (if that's the right word?) of grass and that love is when you want to See the world from your lovers eyes.

Often when you try to explain love, all your words become clichés but in this film it's like you have never heard about love before. But actually I didn't really notice how good I thought this film was until the ending, when the beautiful picture of Hedvig capturing a butterfly froze to...Spoiler.Thanks to that frozen image,the beauty became immortal It wouldn't have been the same if you could actually see...spoiler. It left a nice, warm feeling in my chest that I think will stay for long.

Š-DR- ELVIRA MADIGAN de Bo Widerberg (1967) p9

29/07/2014 04:37 par tellurikwaves

A Romantic Foreign Film From The 60's
10/10
Author: FloatingOpera7 from United States
13 February 2005

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Looking for a rare and good film to watch for Valentines Day ? Director Bo Widerberg's classic 1967 film Elvira Madigan is tailor made for lovers. It was a big hit in the 60's, when love and individual freedom was the popular philosophy. In fact, looking at this film, audiences must have sighed in relief that such a case as that of Elvira Madigan and Lt. Sixten Sparre would not have occurred in their time.

Elvira Madigan (played by the beautiful Pia Degermark) is a tightrope walker for the circus. She falls in love with the married Lt. Sixten Sparre (Thommy Berggren). The 19th century world they live in shuns their love and is even after them. A life on the run is at first tolerable. At least they are able to eat picnics in the forests and make love. This scene, by the way, is the most romantic in the film.

The Mozart Piano Concerto 21 second movement, andante, is played repeatedly as the romance theme. It became so popular that even the concerto was named the "Elvira Madigan" concerto though surely Mozart would have none of it. The acting may appear stilted and pantomime, and there are plenty of moments in which there is no talk but visually and dramatically it's a very well-done film.

Also in the score is Vivaldi's Four Seasons. The story is said to have been based on an actual event in the 1850's. A pair of lovers on the run killed themselves in the woods. The movie has set the time to either late 1890's or early 1900's. The reference to Toulousse Latrec and the style of dress gives it away. This movie is very romantic and haunting. It will move you to tears.

Š-DR- ELVIRA MADIGAN de Bo Widerberg (1967) p8

29/07/2014 04:31 par tellurikwaves

Gorgeous and Tragic Love Story
10/10
Author: kathik from Minneapolis, MN
13 December 2006

Š-DR- ELVIRA MADIGAN de Bo Widerberg (1967) p7

29/07/2014 04:17 par tellurikwaves

Miscellaneous Sites

• Indiemoviez (Spanish)
• YoVideo (French)

Photographs

• MovieStillsDB - Photo gallery
• MoTechPosters

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an enduring love story
10/10
Author: chris ivanyi (civanyi@ucla.edu) from Los Angeles
6 January 2000

I had the pleasure, and good fortune to see this film on the big screen. It exemplifies classic beauty, one is reminded of Renoir paintings. The film uses landscape to reveal inner emotions, a rarity these days. The structure reveals the final outcome in the beginning, leaving us with is an examination of a process so lovingly portrayed by Widerberg, a process so perfectly focused -- a delicate, lyrical love story -- quite an achievement.

Š-DR- ELVIRA MADIGAN de Bo Widerberg (1967) p6

29/07/2014 03:52 par tellurikwaves

As beautiful as advertised
9/10
Author: Dennis Littrell from United States
18 June 2001

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon.)

This really is a beautiful movie, exquisite in detail, gorgeously filmed, directed with great subtlety and intensely focused. Nothing wasted or thrown away here.Everything counts. We feel the forebodings of tragedy first in the straight razor in Sixten's hand as he caresses the back of Elvira's head, and then again there is the knife on their picnics, stark, solid, sharp steel in the paradise of their love. Note too the shots on her belly. The child touches her stomach. She vomits from eating flowers...

To really appreciate this movie it should be understood that it was filmed in the sixties and it represented to that audience something precious and true. Note the anti-war sentiment seemingly tangential to the story of the film, but nonetheless running as a deep current underneath. He was an army deserter, like those in the sixties who fled to Canada to avoid the draft and the body bags in Vietnam. Note his confrontation with his friend from the regiment, a scene that many in the sixties lived themselves. He gave up everything for love, but it really is her story, her choice. She chose a man with a wife and two children, a soldier.

She had many other choices, as the friend reminded her, but for her he was the "last one." What they did was wrong, but it was indeed a summer of love, the cold northern winter in the distance, ripe red raspberries and mushrooms to eat and greenery everywhere and the sun brilliant and warm; and then in the next to the last scene with the children when she faints as the child pulls off the blindfold of the game and is surprised to face Elvira's belly, there is just a little snow on the ground, perhaps it is from the last winter, not completely melted.

If you can watch this without a tear in your eye and a melancholy feeling about the nature of human love, you have grown too old. Theirs was a forbidden love, like that of Romeo and Juliet, a tragic love, doomed from the start, which is why the ending of the movie is revealed in the opening credits. Those who think a story is spoiled by knowing the ending, know not the subtle ways of story, of great tales that are told again and again. Knowing the ending only sharpens the senses and heightens the appreciation.

Pia Degermark who plays Elvira, who is a tightrope walker,a girl of gypsies(?!) has beautiful calves(which is all we see of her body), a graceful style and gorgeous eyes, made up in the unmistakable style of the sixties, very dark with long heavily mascara'ed eyelashes. And she is a flower child, a fairy child of the forest, drawn to things earthy and mysterious, to a strong young man and a fortune teller who finds for her only small black spades in her future. In life we chase after butterflies. Sometimes we catch one.

Š-DR- ELVIRA MADIGAN de Bo Widerberg (1967) p5

29/07/2014 03:44 par tellurikwaves

 
Breathtakingly beautiful photography & music
10/10
Author: Don W from Long Island Motor Parkway
29 January 2000

Breathtakingly beautiful photography & music help to make this movie the finest love story I've seen. It's based on a true story that took place in 1859, although the movie is set at a somewhat later date. It's hard to imagine that these two young people, so full of life & love for each other, would choose the option they did to resolve their problems, but part of what this movie shows us is the inability of these two "upper class" individuals (Lt. Sparre is a Count, an aristocrat, & Elvira is a world famous circus performer who is mentioned in newspaper articles & a book) to cope with life once it has beeen altered beyond what they have been accustomed to deal with. If you choose not to read the subtitles,(ce qui serait très CON !) you'll still enjoy the movie for its visual beauty & the terrific music by Mozart & Vivaldi. Ironically,(?) the drawing Elvira pawns for pennies is by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec!!

Š-DR- ELVIRA MADIGAN de Bo Widerberg (1967) p4

29/07/2014 03:24 par tellurikwaves

• rogerebert.com [Roger Ebert]
• Andy's Film Blog [Andy Kaiser]
• Cinepassion.org [Fernando F. Croce]
• DVD Times
• EyeForFilm.co.uk
• Filmfenix.se [Mattias Berg] (Swedish)
• MyReviewer [Alan Titherington]
• Rotten Tomatoes - Reviews from the Nation's Top Critics
• Thrill Me Softly [Stefan Hedmark]

Š-DR- ELVIRA MADIGAN de Bo Widerberg (1967) p3

28/07/2014 16:57 par tellurikwaves

La critique de DVD Classik
A la fin du XIXe siècle, l'histoire vraie (et apparemment très célèbre en Suède) d'Elvira Madigan, jeune artiste de cirque, et de son amoureux Sixten Sparre, comte déserteur de l'armée et de sa famille, qui fuient à travers la campagne pour vivre leur passion défendue. Acculés dans une impasse faute d'argent et de soutien, ils finiront par se donner la mort.

Sur le papier, Elvira Madigan s'inscrit complètement dans la tradition romanesque de l'amour tragique à laquelle la littérature romantique pourvut nombre d'héroïnes, ce qui rend les développements de l'histoire prévisibles. L'intérêt n'est pas là. C'est le style qui fait tout. Bo Winderberg filme au plus près des corps, des visages, évite la raideur du film de costumes en créant, par le naturalisme de la photographie et la composition des cadres dans la nature, un sentiment de proximité, de sensualité et de quiétude qui convoque l'esprit des impressionnistes.

On se sent bien, dans ce film. La pénétration de la lumière à travers les feuillages, les brindilles qui s'agitent doucement, l'impression d'écoulement du temps et de symbiose amoureuse sous la protection de la nature... l'apaisement de ces images donne paradoxa lement encore plus de fatalité au parcours de notre couple, car on sait dès le départ que cet état de grâce n'est pas promis à être durable.

Cette façon de  filmer fait immanquablement penser au style de Malick, et pas seulement à cause des motifs de jeune femme courant dans les champs ou de gros plans sur des  insectes: le scénario et les caractérisations sont en effet également relativement allusives, ce qui contribue à ce climat fragile d'envoûtement, de même que la  musique aérienne et sur-utilisée de Mozart (son concerto pour piano n°23(nan ...le 21) sera même rebaptisé "Elvira Madigan" par certains publicitaires distributeurs de maisons de disques pour surfer sur le film).
 
Un dernier mot enfin sur ce qui est sans doute LA raison numéro 1 de voir ce film: la superbe Pia Degermark (c'est pas Jack Carter qui dira le contraire  :mrgreen: ). Ingmar Bergman aura eu beau baver sur elle, la jeune femme est absolument éblouissante et mémorable dans le rôle-titre. Elle remportera d'ailleurs le Prix d'interprétation à Cannes pour ce film.

Sa carrière ne s'en relèvera pas. Mais c'est un de ces miracles que permet occasionnel lement le cinéma: cette fille déboule de nulle part et met de suite la caméra à ses pieds. Avec sa crinière blonde et son regard azur, la jeune femme nous fait immédiatement chavirer. Elle a la candeur et la spontanéité idéales et adoucit les longueurs d'un bon film auquel il manque la fièvre, la puissance dramatique, pour être réellement abouti à mes yeux. Je recommande quand même.

Š-DR- ELVIRA MADIGAN de Bo Widerberg (1967) p2

28/07/2014 16:40 par tellurikwaves

Autour du film
L'accompagnement musical du film, très réussi, a permis d'accroître la renommée du Concerto pour piano n° 21 de Mozart, à tel point qu'il fut même nommé, par la suite, Elvira Madigan par les distributeurs de disque. En complément il convient de mentionner la musique de Vivaldi : 1er mouvement de "l'été" - RV 315 (Les Quatre Saisons) et surtout le 1er mouvement du concerto "L'Amoroso" - RV 271 qui accompagne les séquences où l’héroïne renoue brièvement avec son art de la corde.

Š-DR- ELVIRA MADIGAN de Bo Widerberg (1967)

28/07/2014 16:33 par tellurikwaves

Pia Degermark : Elvira Madigan
Thommy Berggren : le comte Sparre
Lennart Malmer : Kristoffer
Cleo Jensen : Cleo
Yvonne Engdal : la voix d'Elvira Madigan