The Emigrants (film)

The Emigrants Swedish Utvandrarna is a 1971 Swedish film directed by Jan Troell. It tells the story of a Swedish group who emigrate from Smland, Sweden to Minnesota, United States in the 19th century. The film follows the hardship of the group in Sweden and on the trip.

The film begins in 1844 in the Swedish province of Smaland, where in Ljuder Parish lives the Nilsson family. They live on a small farm in the woods at Korpamoen, which consists of a small plot of infertile land riddled with stones. They have three children Their oldest son, Karl Oskar, is in line to inherit the farm from his father Nils, who has been crippled from an injury sustained after a failed attempt to dig a large boulder out of the earth in one of their fields. A daughter, Lydia, works as a maid in the nearby town of Akerby, while their youngest son Robert works as a farmhand at another farm at Nybacken. While Karl Oskar is in the process of inheriting the farm, Nils informs him that he needs a wife to be a successful farmer. Afterwards, Karl Oskar meets a young girl named Kristina Johansdotter, who soon becomes his bride. She moves to Korpamoen to live with him and his parents. In the following years, Karl Oskar and Kristina start a family, starting with a daughter, Anna, followed by a son, Johan, then another daughter, Marta, and finally another son, Harald. Times are difficult there is bad weather, the harvests are poor, and hunger prevails. Karl Oskars rebellious younger brother Robert first comes across the idea of emigrating to America, tired of being treated poorly as a farmhand. He first asks his friend Arvid, another farmhand at Nybacken to come along with him, who eagerly agrees to do so, but the pairs hopes are dashed when they realize they havent the money needed for their passage. Robert confronts Karl Oskar about selling his share of the farm in order to afford the passage, only to find out that Karl Oskar himself had been considering the idea of moving his family to the United States. Despite the offerings of a better life, Kristina adamantly rejects the notion, not wanting to leave her homeland as well as being fearful of risking the lives of their four young children on the ocean. However, one night, hunger compels the couples eldest daught

Source: Wikipedia