Sult (1966)

User Rating:

8.0/10   

Director:

Henning Carlsen

Writers:

Henning Carlsen (writer)
Knut Hamsun (novel)

Release Date:

12 August 1968 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

In 1890, Pontus, the starving writer, wanders the streets of Christiania, in search of love and a chance to get his work published...

Plot Keywords:

1800s | Knut Hamsun | Kristiania | Author | Tragedy

Awards:

5 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Per Oscarsson	...	Pontus
Gunnel Lindblom	...	Ylajali
Birgitte Federspiel	...	Her sister
Knud Rex	...	Landlord
Hans W. Petersen	...	Grocer
Henki Kolstad	...	Editor
Roy Bjørnstad	...	Konstantin
Sverre Hansen	...	Painter
Pål Skjønberg	...	Constable
Else Heiberg	...	Landlady
Lise Fjeldstad	...	Little girl
Carl Ottosen	...	Sailor
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Bjarne Andersen
Wilfred Breistrand
Osvald Helmuth	...	Pawnbroker
Sigrid Horne-Rasmussen	...	Landlady
Ola B. Johannessen
Lars Tvinde

Also Known As:

Hunger (USA)
Svält (Sweden)

Runtime:

112 min

Country:

Denmark | Norway | Sweden

Language:

Danish

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:12 | Finland:K-12 | Singapore:PG | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Oslo, Norway

Company:

Sandrews

Movie Connections:

Version of Hunger (2001/I)

Begger's Banquet Napkin

Superficially, this is a collection of tableaux concerning a writer who is so caught up in the identity of a writer that he cannot write, and therefore is starving, both in terms of food, and in terms of the written product. Its actually pretty satisfying at this level. We get it. The character within gets no such nourishment but we as viewers do.

So there's a sort of twist built into the thing, we see a tubelocked artist and depend on an efficient artist to receive the art that conveys this. That means the manner of the way it is constructed matters, and that's why you may want to see this. Because its a complex calculation that the filmmaker has to make. There's a balance here between art that escapes the artist and art that doesn't.

I don't know the book, but presume it is rooted in internal dialog, noted here in a few spots with muted tones and the appearance of our artist as listener for his ramblings. But it is an afterthought in the film. The real center here is in the antiseptic stance we are placed in as viewers. We see but cannot touch. We always find ourselves just a bit beyond the perimeter of this man's artistic reach. Its us that cannot reach him, not he that has trouble reaching us.

Oddly, this reversal works. It may be just me and my deep obsessions with narrative agency, but I think a deliberate decision was made here as sort of role reversal and symmetric reflection at the same time. Its characteristic of Scandanavian film problemsolving.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.