Brehm Center

     Sweet Land is a gem of a movie – gorgeous to look at, heartfelt in emotion, and rich in meaning. (Thanks are due to Minnesota pastor Mick Murphy for recommending it to us.) Fifteen years in the making, it is the first feature film by commercial filmmaker Ali Selim, a Minnesota native and the son of Egyptian immigrants. The movie captures beautifully the struggle and joys of a past generation of Scandinavian-American immigrant farmers, while at the same time inviting viewers to consider how the lives of these pioneers might reveal something about our lives today. (For any Covenanters who are in churches where the older generation is still Scandinavian, this movie is a must. Showing the film at an intergenerational church event will provide a wonderful occasion for sharing and mutual understanding.)

Sweet Land is what its title suggests, a sweet, innocent love story rooted in the Minnesota prairie. It is a tonal poem in which gesture and image, photography and music, carry the primary meaning. The 35mm film stock that was used captures well the immensity of the landscape and the isolation of these early homesteaders. In the process, it also reveals the importance of place. Viewers are encouraged to enter another world – one of heartbreak and joy, hard work and loyalty, uprooting and rootedness, earthiness and spirit.

The movie functions on two levels: it is first of all the story of Inge Altenberg, a mail-order bride from Norway who comes to marry Olav Torvik, a hard-working, shy Lutheran farmer living on the prairie in post-WWI Minnesota. Though both Inge and Olav are willing to be married, the community tries to block their wedding when it is discovered that she actually is German in nationality. What can be done? Hatred and prejudice die hard, even when the war is over and the “enemy” is a beautiful and honorable young woman.

Olav is decent, hardworking, religious, and generous with those he loves. Like many Scandinavian Covenant men from a generation ago, he also doesn’t say much, instead letting his actions speak. Inge, though expressive through gesture, posture, and facial expression, is hardly more talkative. She only knows a couple of phrases in English (“I could eat a horse”). The dialogue, therefore is minimal, though the romance is not. Although there is no overt sexuality (viewers will be amazed at how sensual the simple act of holding hands can be), the movie is nonetheless filled with sensuousness. Theirs is a courtship of gesture and suggestion, reinforced by committed action and resolve.

The movie is told from Inge’s perspective, and Elizabeth Guinee, as Inge, gives viewers one of the great performances of the year. Vulnerable, hard-working, full of honor, patient, persistent, cultured, beautiful, sensitive – Inge is everyman’s dream of what a mail-order wife (or an “E-Harmony” companion) might be. When we see her being taught by a neighbor friend to bake an apple pie, and then watch as the two women eat the whole pie with joy and passion, it is a visceral experience few will forget. (For Rob, it also brought to mind his Swedish grandmother’s apple pie!)

We see Inge’s story through a double flashback that allows the eighty-five years between then and now to be traversed. When the movie opens, the elederly Inge has just died and her grandson is being offered several million dollars if he will sell his grandparents’ farm. As he ponders the possibility, he recalls his grandmother’s words to him as a teenager when his grandfather died. They are sitting together looking at a photograph of her when she arrived on the prairie by train, two suitcases and a gramophone in hand. From this story within a story, viewers are transported back to the 20’s through the retelling of the lives of these immigrants.

Although the movie is simple in plot and sparse in detail, it is nonetheless rich in implication. It’s resonances with the present are multiple. Whether Hispanic or Arabic, Southeast Asian or Japanese, any who have felt the hostility of being an outsider in America will resonate with the sensitivity of the movie’s portrayal. The townspeople who exclude Inge are not mean-spirited (at least the majority). But many of their institutions that were meant to serve, have been taken over by fear. And the results are painful. Pastor Sorensen from the town’s small church is basically a good man, but he will not marry the couple – she doesn’t have the right immigration papers. But the courthouse staff will not issue the papers, for they don’t have “proof” that Inge is a trustworthy and morally upright person. It doesn’t matter that Inge and Olav “are simple farmers with honest dreams.” We as viewers find ourselves asking these towns-people, aren’t you Norwegian-Americans also immigrants, yourselves?  Aren’t most of us, in fact, the children of immigrants? To use biblical language, we all were once sojourners in a strange land, hoping for respect and opportunity. Moreover, our God declared himself a God who favors such outsiders (Ezekiel 47: 21-23). Can we do any less?

Sweet Land is a leisurely movie. It slows us down as viewers, allowing us to recognize the gift of place and the importance of family. The movie also challenges us to reach out to the stranger in our midst. Even well-meaning structures can oppress, particularly when there is fear. But chiefly, Sweet Land portrays the gift of love: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” (I John 4:18)