Dreyer Carl Th Glomdalsbruden[1926]1cd

User Reviews

Affecting pastoral precursor to Dreyer's later work
2 June 2005 | by (aandersen@landmark.edu) (Putney, VT) – See all my reviews

BRIDE OF GLOMDAL is a lovely pastoral film. The Romeo and Juliet theme of the script- lovers kept apart by male parents - would be echoed and developed further in his ORDET. There it was conflicting religious views of the patriarchs that prevented the smooth coupling. Here it is simply that the feisty heroine's father has promised her to a neighboring farmer's son, rather than settle for the poorer inheritance her Romeo would bring.

She is a strong heroine and won't be bought. She runs away and is brought to her betrothed's family, later shifted to the priest's house out of delicacy. The priest is the go-between, visiting and berating both the heroine's father and the father-in-law/husband, the latter would have chosen for her.

There is a bit of D.W. Griffith melodrama on the wedding day, when the rebuffed suitor sets adrift the boats that join the two families across a dividing river and our hero, in his attempts to cross on horseback, is swept into the current, but all comes right in the end.

This is an extremely rare film - the only print I know of is housed at the Norsk Filminstitutt and I viewed a video copy of same without musical score and with Norwegian/Danish? inter-titles. The print was 74 minutes in length, shorter by far than the original 115 minute release.

For Dreyer fans, this is worth seeking out. He is already laying plans and exploring human feeling, movement and facial expression for use in his later masterpieces.