The Emigrants (1972)

This film had long eluded me. The more than three-year gap since I had sought out past best picture nominees was largely due to my inability to find a copy of The Emigrants. Well, time has proved to be my greatest ally. When I started looking around again, it was now available to rent it on Amazon. Other films I'd missed are now online as well, so I'm hoping to make another run to catch 'em all.

The Emigrants is over three hours long and almost entirely in Swedish, but I still found it rather captivating. The first half is our main family struggling to make a go of it in Sweden. The third quarter is the miserable voyage by ship to American and the final portion is by train, paddleboat, and foot to their new home in Minnesota. The story is set in the 1840s and 1850s and struck home for me as I have ancestors who no doubt went through a very similar journey, just two decades later and from Norway.

[Note: I've finally joined all other lists' reckoning--including the Academy's--by removing the three nominees in the alternate best picture category from 1929 no longer recognized as having he same standing as the others. I'd already seen two of the three anyway, and will still try to see the third, but it does affect my counting].

40 to go...