Pelle the Conqueror (1988)

Pelle the Conqueror is that rare instance of a film winning the approval of the oft-times demanding jury at Cannes (where it won the Palm d'Or) and the generally conservative members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, who honored it with an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. It is, in short, a serious work of art that is also accessible and universal in its appeal. Pelle (Pelle Hvenegaard) and his father, Lasse (Max von Sydow), are a co-dependent pair. Lasse, an older widower with few employable skills, is forced to work under degrading conditions in his new home on a Denmark farm, and while the young Pelle watches his father's humiliations, he comes to understand his own need to for independence. It's a coming-of-age story with a bitter difference; Pelle must grow up before he even reaches puberty or else he'll be mired in the same meager existence as his Pappa. Writer/director Bille August doesn't rush this story, allowing occasional rays of hope to beckon Lasse and Pelle to a better life. Lasse courts a local woman until her husband, presumably lost at sea, shows up, while Pelle is taken in by the farm owner's kindly wife until she stabs her husband in a jealous rage and decides to care for him instead. The film has the feel of the classic Italian postwar neorealist dramas, honestly presenting the everyday lives of downtrodden people without apology or excuse for their miserable conditions. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide