A friend of mine sent me this comment after seeing Sweet Land: ...It was a bit of a downer. Of course their lives were over even as the story was being told; but after it was over I thought, Gee, that’s how it is, in a couple of generations we’re all forgotten.

I felt like she missed the point. I responded: I saw something entirely different in it, their nobel-ness, their courage, their goodness. The deck was stacked heavily against them, and through God’s will they scratched out their little place in the world. What he did to save Frinzen’s land – when no one else would lift a finger, and when he himself had no plan – was the epitome of facing fear successfully. This virtue was matched – indeed bettered! – only by her reasoning with and eventual prevailing over the preacher. She beat him at his own game! (Those clever Germans!) End of their time, yes – that is our mortality. We will all die. But, will her son ultimately have the strength and courage his parents did???

I thought this was an exquisite film – simple, elegant, beautiful, electric emotions.

Am I reading too much into it?

Hi Steve, I thought I'd use the blog to respond to your IMDB question and others can join in if they wish. As you can see IMDB is hit and miss on information especially for more obscure films. I don't think they provide their own content (or arrange with distributors to do so) and depend on viewers to add it. RT is better in most cases and would link to the reviews we have considered. But even RT is not going to work in all cases. It's fine for La Vie en Rose, our next screening, http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/la_vie_en_rose/ but, for the after that, How Is Your Fish Today? it has almost nothing. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/how_is_your_fish_today/
The latter is unusual for us as typically we wait for sufficient reviews in RT but it does happen sometimes.

Thanks for your good work,

Jack