The Lionheart Brothers (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The Lionheart brothers |
| Original title | Bröderna Lejonhjärta |
| Country of production | Sweden |
| original language | Swedish |
| Publishing year | 1977 |
| length | 106 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 6 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Olle Hellbom |
| script | Astrid Lindgren |
| production |
Olle Hellbom Olle Nordemar |
| music |
Björn Isfalt Lasse Dahlberg |
| camera | Rune Ericson |
| occupation | |
| |
The Lionheart Brothers is a fantasy film by Olle Hellbom based on the novel of the same name by Astrid Lindgren . The film was shown in German for the first time at the 1978 Berlinale . Dying, death and the afterlife are discussed - but also adventure, hope and courage.
action
Little Karl “Krümel” Leo (9) knows that he will soon die of his incurable lung disease. As a consolation, his big brother Jonathan (13) tells him about the land of Nangijala, which one comes to after death. There you will be healthy and experience many adventures. When a fire breaks out in the house, Jonathan piggybacks little Karl and jumps out of the attic window: Karl remains unharmed while his lifesaver Jonathan dies. A few days after his funeral, the terminally ill Karl also dies.
The cherry blossom valley in Nangijala
Karl arrives at Nangijala in the heavenly cherry blossom valley, where Jonathan awaits him. He shows him his riding stables, his horses, the village pub and nice villagers like Jossi, Hubert or the pigeon breeder Sofia. They receive the first quest from a white carrier pigeon that has just landed : “Orvar was captured yesterday and is now being held in Katla Cave. Someone from the Cherry Valley betrayed his hiding place. Find out who it was. "
Karl learns that the tyrant Tengil from Karmanjaka had the neighboring Thorn Rose Valley occupied and wants to enslave other countries. In addition, the ruler put a bounty worth 15 horses on the freedom fighter Sofia and locked her agent Orvar in the Katla cave. To free him, Jonathan rides there, although Karl is against it because he is afraid for Jonathan. Only the next day Karl rides off and discovers that Jossi, a traitor, meets two Tengil soldiers and demands a reward from them. But instead of this, Jossi only gets Tengil's Katla mark burned on his chest.
The Thorn Rose Valley in Nangijala
The two Tengil soldiers catch Karl and take him to the walled capital of the Dornrose Valley, because Karl pretends to live there with his grandfather. Fortunately, there is a man in town named Mattias who pretends Karl is his grandson. Thereupon the Tengil soldiers ride on happily, and Mattias is able to reveal a secret: Jonathan is already hiding in his cellar, for whom a head bonus of 20 horses is now available. The brothers tell each other their experiences and send the name of the traitor to Sofia by mail pigeon. So you have done half of the task.
With Mattias' help, Jonathan dug a secret tunnel under the city wall, through which Karl crawls outside. Jonathan manages to lead two horses out of the city gate, disguised as a Tengil soldier, because Karl gave him the password that he heard from Jossi and the soldiers. Now the brothers are free again and ride to Karmanjaka, Tengil's land, to free Orvar from the Katla cave.
The Katla Cave in Karmanyaka
The main entrance to the cave is closely guarded by a Tengil troop, so the brothers have to climb through dangerous sinuses until they find Orvar in a thick wooden cage. In this Orvar is offered to the fire dragon Katla for food, who can return from the mountains at any moment. The brothers cut open the cage and lead Orvar outside through sinuses. That completes the other half of the quest.
Flight and war
The Tengil guards find the cage empty and sound the alarm. Tyrant Tengil gathers his lancers troops for the great war, while Orvar and the brothers flee to Thorn Rose Valley, where they set up a people's army - armed with pitchforks, pikes, arrows and bows. Unfortunately, Mattias is fatally injured by a Tengil henchman throwing a lance when he sends a white pigeon in front of his door to signal the beginning of the fight for freedom to all allies. At the gates of the thorn rose capital, which was conquered under Orvar, all resistance fighters gather for the decisive battle against Tengil's black captors.
At first, the Tengil troops with their lances, helmets and shields seem superior. Thanks to Orvar's tactical skill, the People's Army succeeds in taking more and more weapons from the Tengil Army and gaining the upper hand with them - until Tengil appears and commands the dragon Katla with a horn to spew fire rollers at Orvar's liberation fighters. They have no chance against it; all must flee or burn. Jonathan the Lionheart gallops towards Tengil and snatches the horn from him. Katla then kills Tengil and withdraws at Jonathan's behest.
The dragon slaying
The people in Thorn Rose Valley have been freed from Tengil's terror, but are threatened by fire dragon Katla, who, despite Jonathan's horn command, occasionally leaves her cave and does mischief. That's why the Lionheart brothers venture into the Dragon's Lair one more time. In it they lure the monster onto an unstable rock plateau, which Jonathan loosens at the base, so that the monster roars into an underground acid lake and dissolves.
The apple valley in Nangilima
The Löwenherz brothers cannot be happy about their heroic deeds because they miss their murdered friend and helper Mattias - in addition, Jonathan was injured by Katla's fire, so that his legs and arms are paralyzed. Only one more jump to death, says Jonathan, would lead to Nangilima in the Apple Valley, where you are completely healthy and can live on forever with good old friends. The film ends with the music by Isfalt / Dahlberg and in Karl's words: “We're jumping to Nangilima [...]. I can already see the light. Jonathan, Nangilima! I see the light! Jonathan! The light!"
Differences from the novel
Astrid Lindgren not only wrote the novel, but also - as for many other film adaptations of her books - the screenplay, in which she added some variations to the original story, so that the fictional film has the following differences to the novel.
- The cherry valley is also called cherry blossom valley in the film and the neighboring wild rose valley is now called thorn rose valley.
- In the novel, Jonathan saves one of Tengil's henchmen who turns out to be a nice person; he is later killed in the war.
- Veders and Kader's exact convictions are not shown in the film. Also, in the novel, they are killed by Orvar and Sofia.
- In the film, Mattias is fatally injured by a Tengil henchman throwing a lance when he sends a white carrier pigeon up on his doorstep to signal the start of the struggle for freedom to all allies.
- Karm, the dragon , does not appear in the film. In the novel, he is Katla's enemy and decided eons ago to kill this dragon . But it was impossible for the water dragon Karm to land Katla until Jonathan drops a rock on Katla, so that she falls into Karm's waterfalls, where both dragons kill each other.
- The end of the film is less radical and doesn't show the brothers jumping into their deaths.
- Jonathan is obviously much older than 13 in the film. (Actor Staffan Götestam was 25 years old at the time of filming.)
production
The film also owes the fantastic, sometimes melancholy and gloomy atmosphere to the locations. It includes recordings from Stockholm and Skåne län in Sweden , from Aarhus and Jutland in Denmark and from Þingvellir in Iceland .
Reviews
“Epic narrative cinema about eternal human themes such as love and death, freedom and oppression in a film that caused a stir at the time because it is one of the few children's films that aggressively deals with death. Also formally - especially in equipment and camera - an outstanding work. "
Awards
- 1978: Golden Bear nomination ( Berlin International Film Festival 1978 ) for Olle Hellbom
- 1978: OCIC Prize ( Berlin International Film Festival 1978 ) - Special Mention
- 1978: Guldbagge film award for best director to Olle Hellbom
- 1982: Fantafestival award for best director to Olle Hellbom
literature
- Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer: The Löwenherz brothers - fantastic storytelling in novels and films. In: Tobias Kurwinkel, Philipp Schmerheim, Annika Kurwinkel (eds.): Astrid Lindgren's films. Aurality and film experience in children's and youth films. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-8260-4467-0 , pp. 53-66.
- Silke Pfeffer, Sabrina Sandmann, Anna Zamolska: The Löwenherz brothers. The fantastic land of bonfires and fairy tales. In: Tobias Kurwinkel, Philipp Schmerheim, Annika Kurwinkel (eds.): Astrid Lindgren's films. Aurality and film experience in children's and youth films. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-8260-4467-0 , pp. 67-82.
Web links
- The Brothers Lionheart in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Olle Hellbom (director): The Lionheart Brothers (102 min.), AB Svensk Filmindustri, Stockholm 1977, min. 23.
- ↑ Olle Hellbom (director): The Lionheart Brothers (102 min.), AB Svensk Filmindustri, Stockholm 1977, min. 98.
- ↑ IMDb (ed.): Filming locations for Bröderna Lejonhjärta (1977) , tot . 2012-0419-1533, ed. 2012.
- ↑ The Lionheart Brothers. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film Service , accessed December 27, 2010 .
- ↑ a b c d IMDB (ed.): Awards for Bröderna Lejonhjärta (1977) , ges. 2012-0416-0252, ed. 2012.