Glomdalsbruden (1926) watch online HD

Glomdalsbruden exists today in a splendid print drawn directly from the nitrate negative and is available both on DVD and blue-ray. It is however, a very short version (1250 meters) of what was originally a long movie (2525 meters). It is likely that the film was cut down immediately after release in 1926 but the facts are uncertain. The story as we see it now is at least no fragment; it is a tight, fast moving story complete in itself.

Based on two once very popular peasant stories by Jakob Breda Bull, it is a common enough tale of two troubled lovers, Berit and (poor) Tore, and an even more troubled, desperately jealous third party, (rich) Gjermund. Gjermund is promised to marry Berit by her father but Berit will not have it. She rides away, falls from her horse, gets hurt and spends some time recovering at Tore's farm, and then at the parson's place. When they finally are allowed to get married, Gjermund is ready to make trouble: He sets their boats adrift, making it impossible for the lovers to cross the river to get to the church. Gjermund tries to cross the river on a horse but both horse and man are taken by the current. After many a dramatic river scene, they make it ashore. The wedding can thus take place. The End.

The film was just a swift summer's work for Dreyer, who originally was called to Norway to film Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson's more complicated drama En fallit. But time proved to short for that, so Dreyer himself suggested the simple Bull stories. He had no script, and directed the entire film almost straight from the books, improvising the scenes from day to day, and making the most of the local country locations and the rustic interiors of the old peasant lodgings. This may not sound very promising but Dreyer was by then experienced and professional enough to complete a decent film considering the circumstances. There is plenty of folklore dancing, fighting, and some fine romantic scenes among the northern summer country, all edited together with Dreyer's by then usual attention to detail, especially as far as the peasants faces and gestures are involved. But perhaps the lack of time made it impossible to make more perfect character studies. The actors, taken from the National Theatre in Oslo, are no more than adequate; they mostly look the part in their rustic robes but it is the cinematography, by the local Einar Olsen, the editing, by Dreyer, and the scenery which makes the film.

The river Glomma deserves special mention as it is almost a character in itself; the climax where Dreyer films the almost drowning Tore and his poor horse in the swift rapids are quite terrifying. The cross cutting between the worried, and at one point fainting, Berit and the ones in the river is as good as can be expected from a man who has learned much from Griffith in how to make an art of poor folk fighting strong currents (Way Down East).

But Glomdalsbruden as a whole in the current version is not all it could have been. The troubled Gjermund, for instance, is not given much screen time in the film as it is today. Even when lurking after the lovers with an axe, he seems curiously out of place and not really frightening. Indeed he remains a rather vague person where a more sinister and evil character could have raised the drama to a little more frantic effect. As it is, the film remains a trifle in the Dreyer canon but a trifle that at least looks great courtesy of the pristine print.

Last night I finished watching a series of early films by Carl Theodor Dreyer, with "The Bride of Glomdal", a great contrast after seeing "Michael". (The film in between these two was not available in the library of the film school where I work). For this production, Dreyer went to Norway and shot a story with a certain peasant candor (that would later reappear in "Ordet", in a graver tone) and that for the most part takes place outdoors, as opposed to "Michael", in which the action is confined to the sets designed by Expressionist architect Hugo Häring (who apparently did not work in films again). Dreyer narrates a tale of young love between the son of a poor farmer and the daughter of a rich one, and how the strong young woman fights to be with the man she loves, in spite of the actions taken by her father and another suitor, whose evil actions cause the most spectacular sequence during the day of the wedding, when the groom falls into a river and is swept away by its current, in the midst of floating logs, down to a waterfall. A pleasant and gentle dramatic comedy, "The Bride of Glomdal" does not suggest what was next to come from Dreyer: "The Passion of Jeanne d'Arc".