Before Gosta... Gunnar Hede's Saga (1923) with Guenter A. Buchwald and Neil Brand, Bonn Silent Film Festival

As many may know I’m always up for a Saga directed by Mauritz Stiller and based on a book by Selma Lagerlöf and, even though this one is still missing about half an hour, it is a thoroughly entertaining romp through snow, love and madness which features the humanity you’d expect from Selma along with the mastery of locations and character you can rely on from Mauritz. It’s a story about reindeers and redemption (the latter, always a Selma theme) and, how fitting that a film featuring two violin players and the healing power of music, should be accompanied by the Silent Film Supergroup of Guenter A. Buchwald on violin and Neil Brand on piano… I really wish I’d been there to witness this gig in the flesh but the streaming screening will have to do for now and how.

 

Whereas Gosta Berling has its grand set piece of Lars Hanson and Greta Gustafson (Garbo) escaping across the frozen lake, this film has an extraordinary sequence in which Gunnar Hede (Einar Hansson) is dragged across snow and ice by an escaping reindeer, his grip and footing lost as, off-balanced, the rope he tied to deer and his waist is threatening to see him dragged to a painful doom. Hansson was originally down to play this role but he does very well in his first film role, bright eyed and passionate, his Gunnar inspired by his grandfather’s love of the violin as well as his epic journey bringing a herd of reindeers from the wilderness of the north for lucrative sale in the south.

 

Your grandfather was a simple peasant, Miss Stava should know better than to put fantasies in your head!

 

The matriarch, Mrs Hede (Pauline Brunius)

This action makes the family’s fortune and the gran house and estate of Munkhyttarian Gunnar sees the portrait of his Grandfather comes alive in his imagination, the same passion for music driving his daring imagination. But not all of the family celebrates this stunning success story with Gunnar’s mother Mrs. Hede (an excellent and very fearsome Pauline Brunius) being especially unimpressed. Her boy will have the best grounding in finance and mining management, so he may run the estate properly.

 

Best laid plans of domineering mothers are sometimes over-turned by happenstance and learning that his Father is extremely ill, Einer returns home as quickly as he can… This narrative runs on luck and chance encounters, as much as any Paul Auster novel and, like the American, and Lagerlöf is always more interested in the reaction than the action. In the period of mourning after his father’s death, it comes to pass that a small group of travelling acrobats comes to Munkhyttarian.

Stina Berg on tightrope, Adolf Olschansky spinning plates and Mary Johnson on violin 

This signals a comedic change of pace as we meet a horse that will only pull its cart when serenaded with the mouthorgan played by a scruffy tight-rope walker (Stina Berg) whilst her husband Blomgren (Adolf Olschansky) a man who has taken dishevelled into an artform – a Jasper Johns instillation dragged through a hedge backwards – holds the reins. With them is a poor waif, Ingrid (Mary Johnson) who they have adopted chiefly for her ability to play the violin as they perform. This couple are classic light-relief but they are quite extraordinary.

Their arrival at Munkhyttarian uplifts the mood and Gunnar watches from his window entranced by the music before moving down to find the player just as fascinating. Spirits are lifted and Irene stays as Gunnar starts to play again before a chance encounter on a train with two fellows who have the same plan as his grandfather’s to move enough Reindeer from North to South to make a new fortune.

 

Einar Hansson and Mary Johnson

Gunnar heads up north to Sápmi (formerly known as Lapland), to enlist the aid of Sámi (formerly known as Laplanders; exteriors were largely shot in the surrounding area, Nacka, and Kallsjön in Jämtland) to wrangle a giant herd of deer and drive South. There are some spectacular shots of scenery and the movement of the reindeer especially as they try to cross a wide river. Stiller’s cameraman was Swedish legend, Julius Jaenzon who worked so memorably with Victor Sjostrom as well, who is so audacious with his shots into the sun, managing stunning contrasts between the low light and the players: dramatically infusing the film’s tone with so many exterior shots.

 

The cattle drive is dynamic and with constant threat as the men must make sure that the lead deer is kept under their control so the rest will follow. The going gets tough though and in checking the safety of a frozen lake one of the men falls through the ice leaving Gunnar desperately trying to hold onto the beast which breaks away dragging him with it for hundreds of metres over the snow and ice. The other man is saved but by the time they find Gunnar half the heard as been lost along with his grip on reality. Face bloodied, he sees every animal as a threat and has lost his reason.

 

No deer were harmed in the making of this film, perhaps.

The night of Gunnar’s Reindeer ride, Ingrid experiences the strangest of dreams in which an old woman on a sledge appears in her bedroom: “I am Lady Sorrow on my way to Munkhyttarian…” she says, revealing a bewildered Gunnar in her carriage… what can it all mean? Dreams represent passions and fears but also reveal our deepest thoughts... and Ingrid's connection to Gunnar runs very deep indeed.

 

Gunnar returns home but is traumatised, childlike, and even though Ingrid does what she can, he busies himself with waking dreams collecting stones from across the estate pretending they are the coins required to save his childhood home. Meanwhile, facing ruin, his mother puts Munkhyttarian up for sale… what and who can save them now?

In the US the film was titled The Blizzard!

 

Lagerlöf was not happy with the liberties Stiller had taken with her story, The Tale of a Manor, she seemed to just about prefer Sjostrom’s approaches but was demanding all the same. That said, what remains of Stiller’s film is an engaging story of individual intensities and the grandeur of the rugged reindeer drive… Thousands of reindeer in a mad stampede – the greatest thrill ever screened! announced William Fox’ US publicity, and they weren’t far off.

 

All is thrillingly accompanied by Neil and Guenter who’s collective experience encompasses not just decades worth of silent film accompaniment but also regular collaborations with other players. What those in Bonn saw and we online heard was a deceptively effortless improvised score, sharing leading lines across instruments with a mutual understanding of the drama on screen. In fantasy Football you can select players from each side to form the best team independent of allegiance, here we had Ronaldo and Messi in fine form and it was a massive win for Fußball-Club Stummfilmtage Bonn!