The film is set in the end of the 19th century. A boat filled with Swedish emigrants comes to the Danish island of Bornholm. Among them are Lasse and his son Pelle who move to Denmark to find work. They find employment at a large farm, but
Without Max Von Sydow's central performance this would be a commendable, if not particularly subtle piece of filmmaking. With it, it's something very special.
Pelle the Conqueror is a feature film of epic proportions and a relentlessly unsentimental look at life among the haves and, primarily, the have-nots on a big turn-of-the-century farm.
The movie -- ravishingly photographed by Jorgen (Elvira Madigan) Persson -- dazzles with incident but fails to find the human focus to validate a lasting claim on the heart.
Pelle itself, rather surprisingly, is a natural, organic epic, and one that opens a window on a meticulously detailed bygone world that, by film's end, you might feel as though you've visited.