Oct. 1, 2010 — Jan Troell, who is well–known for his films The Emigrants and The New Land, directed this extraordinary movie. The time is the early 1900s. The main character is a Swedish working-class woman, Maria Larsson (Maria Heiskanen), who won a camera in a lottery. She and her husband are poor and uneducated. Maria decides to pawn the camera without even knowing what it can do. At a shop she meets kindly and intuitive Sebastian Pedersen (Jesper Christensen). He pays her for the camera but urges Maria to keep it and bring him the photos she makes. He demonstrates how the camera lens can capture images. Maria is enthralled and begins experimenting at home.

Meanwhile, Maria’s philandering dockworker husband, Sigfrid (Mikael Persbrandt), who usually comes home drunk, takes a dim view of Maria’s new passion for photography. Sebastian, however, realizes her talent when the two of them develop her negatives. “Not everyone can see as you do,” he says. Always the gentleman, Sebastian respects Maria as a married woman, but director Jan Troell subtly reveals the deepening love Maria and Sebastian feel for each other.

Sigfrid is having an affair with a lovely young woman. Yet he orders Maria to stop her photography, and tries to destroy the camera that has given her new life. Maria cleans houses for money. By now they have five children. When Maria appeals to her aged father for financial help, he says she should remain with her husband “until death do you part.”

When a neighbor comes to their door, saying Maria’s son beat up his son, Maria’s daughter explains that her brother was just defending his dad’s reputation, saying, “The kids at school say Dad is just a drunkard.” When the neighbor leaves, Sigfrid’s expression of “gratitude” is to take off his belt to whip his son. Soon after, “Sigge” is called into the Army. Will he return a hero or be sent back home in disgrace?

A woman asks Maria to take a photo of her daughter who has just died. It is very beautiful and consoles the bereaved mother. Soon Maria is asked to do other portraits. We feel the deep love for family that director Jan Troell has.

This movie is based on the life of Maria Larsson. Troell’s wife, Agneta Ulfsäter-Troell, wrote about Larsson’s life; Larsson’s daughter was Ulfsäter-Troell’s father’s cousin. The filming took place between Feb. 26 and June 1, 2007 in Malmö and Luleå, Sweden and Vilnius, Lithuania.

Todd McCarthy of Variety said, “Beholding Troell’s exquisite images is like having your eyes washed, the better to behold moving pictures of uncorrupted purity and clarity.”

This film was financed by 26 organizations in five countries: Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Germany. It has earned many awards.

131 minutes. In Swedish and Finnish with English subtitles. Shot in 16 mm film, blown up to 35 mm. Available on DVD.