SWEET LAND : excellent movie

Having heard good things about this movie, I'd been trying to see it
for quite some time, but then it vanished quickly from the "good
theatre" we have that would actually show movies with plot and
characters and such!

I finally managed to see it this weekend and I bemoan not seeing it
sooner! It is a wonderful movie that is much of what i love about good
love stories. Typically, we get love stories that use the following
formula : Boy meets hawt girl, the fall in love, during extended
courtship they get into some contrived argument and break up (somtimes,
one of them will get engaged to a 3rd party), they rethink the items of
the argument and then seek each other out, they meet in a big
conclusion.

What's so awful about the above formula is that there is no time to
give a basis for the relationship and so it's as superficial as the
movie ends up being.

SWEET LAND takes place in a post-war Minnesota farming community. Inga
has just travelled from Norway to meet her new husband Ulaf.
Unfortunately, there are a few things against this: she's German, she
speaks no english, she has no immigration papers, and she makes coffee
that's "too black." Over the course of the film, Ulaf and Inga grow to
know each other and then to love each other; some may call teh pace of
this relationship's growth "glacial" but i found it authentic and
beautfiul. Additional elements include crop harvesting time, the new
age of tractors vs farming by hand, mores and attitudes of the farming
community regarding strangers/foreigners, the role of the Church in
dictating community attitudes.

There were just a few slightly awkward/contrived moments that didn't
really diminish the final product.

The two leads were excellent and the growth that they showed (mostly in
how they related to each other) was great to watch.

-goro-