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Arn - Tempelriddaren (2007)

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74 out of 103 people found the following comment useful :-
Reliable, intriguing medieval tale that unfortunately never peaks, 20 December 2007

Author: ozjeppe from Nacka, Sweden/Sydney, Australia

Sweden in the 1100's is the backdrop for the troubled love story between nobleman boy-turned monk-turned-knight templar Arn and neighboring girl Cecilia- before he is sent off to Jerusalem in the crusades and she into a convent- plus the rivalling royal clan struggles for power in the nation. I haven't read the bestselling books which this is based on, and knowing this is a part-saga and soon TV-series to be, I can somewhat overlook the gaps in storytelling.

What I do enjoy is a sound, intriguing (especially the scheming between the church and royal clans) and reliable medieval tale- with heavy doses of romance, monastery/convent dramatics and a little touch of "Kingdom of heaven"- battling in the end- that unfortunately never quite peaks. As a cinephile Swede, I know the country's market, and notice that the filmmakers are SO focused on keeping a safe, steady course not to fail with such a big production ship like this, that they end up with no real climactic cinematic highlights to speak of.

For that reason it's very evenly paced, never boring and quite nicely produced. But with a major flaw: Arn remains very sketchy as an adult character. We never personally get to know him (he has SO few lines!) as to really understand why Cecilia loves him.

All in all, 6 out of 10 from Ozjeppe

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47 out of 63 people found the following comment useful :-
Poetically made, 3 January 2008

Author: Marcus Johnsson from Sweden

Once I heard about this movie I felt pride for my country for making such a big production, hoping for it to be able to challenge big productions such as Troy, King Arthur and maybe even 300. I hoped so, but I expected otherwise. I know my epic movies pretty well, and in the trailer some months before release I notices some bass tones of the music score were identical to a part of the Gladiator music. I feared a cheap American epic movie ripoff with flawed actors and fake-looking special effects. Luckily, I did not see what I expected.

Arn has one big difference from the epic movies we know - it is made in a country where an epic movie of this size has never been made before. Naturally, many will expect to see the same of what we've seen in epic movies so far. Many will expect to see a hero or a group of heroes slaughtering hordes of enemies for the pure obsession of it that they call glory, but they won't. What they will see is the tale of the medieval life told in the most simple way. A mother promising away her son to God to serve him. The obsession of power between kings. To get to know your worst enemy and respect him as a man, and to meet anguish of having to kill him on the battle field without really knowing why.

During the first half of the movie at some point the storytelling got a little over hand, which is understandable while the balancing between being informative and entertaining is a hard thing to perfect. Though, it would be a shame going to the theater to see this film waiting for the heads to start rolling to the right and to the left, missing out the whole experience of having an honest story about the medieval life being told right in front of your eyes by common people.

This is the first part of the story of Arn. Now I have my hopes up for the second movie to round up this tale as well as or better than this first part started it.

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26 out of 44 people found the following comment useful :-
Arn-Tempelriddaren, 6 January 2008

Author: Exeron from Sweden

I must say this one surprised me, it was better than i thought it would be. Joakim Nätterqvist did an awesome performance, i've met him several times since he's my cousins ex so i know him personally and this just what he needed, might this be a new start for a career for Jocke? who knows.

To the movie now...

When title shows up and the beautiful music is being played in the background i'm getting a good felling about it. But then the narrator starts to talk and i have to say he didn't fit in any good, it was just like watching Animal planet. The narrator didn't fit in at all, in fact some people in the audience actually started to laugh, that's rare.

I've heard that some have said that this is the best Swedish movie ever made. For me that's not true, i say that Evil is the best Swedish film. But Arn is just what we in Sweden needed. For all the shitty movies that have been made this was a lift. Perhaps now Sweden will be marked on the map again in film making. Since Bergman died it has been rough for us to get attention in movie making. So i hope Arn goes internationally, due to the fact that they speak more English than Swedish.

But when i've heard from Joakim Nätterqvist that they were gonna re-cut the movie to suit a more younger audience i was a bit worried, i didn't want it to be an Astrid Lindgren movie. But it didn't turn out that way, some parts were actually pretty violent and contained some gore. I've seen worse though but that's something i would like to warn all the sensitive audience's for.

The music for the movie was perfect in my opinion, i don't know who wrote it but my hat goes of for that person.

Arn Tempelriddaren- "Turned out to be surprisingly good!" 8/10

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10 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
Better than I expected, 20 January 2008

Author: Christoffer Slotte (JCS-3) from Finland

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I heard this movie didn't get the best kinds of reviews so I decided to watch it while in Stockholm.

...minor spoilers coming...

I was wrong. It was magical and it actually seemed even better a few days after I watched it. Don't expect another Gladiator or Kingdom of Heaven. These movies were fantastic but this one was quite different, but not the least bit less good. As someone here pointed out you will not see big battles like in Gladiator but a medieval epic can be good even without these huge battles, can it not? I am a big fan of medieval action so I know what I am talking about.

Fortunately (?) I never read the books so I can't compare the movie to them. I also liked the actors chosen for the film. They were not too well-known and therefore good choices.

I'm glad the film was shot in Sweden and not in Eastern Europe. The Swedish locations were absolutely right for this film and Romanian or Slovakian locations (who ARE otherwise fabulous) would have been wrong for this particular film.

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29 out of 53 people found the following comment useful :-
For those who have read the books - a great disappointment (as expected, I guess). For those who haven't read the book - be aware of that this is not a plain action movie!, 30 December 2007

Author: kasolno from Norway

1. Trailers and impression from commercials

The movie trailers have given the impression that this is an action movie, with lots of battles fought with swords and spears in addition to dramatic spoken scenes. This have appealed to people that especially enjoy action movies. Those people are greatly disappointed when they after a first introduction action scene, are turned back to calm scenes in the description of the Arn's childhood and youth. I asked myself several times why the makers of this move haven't been so honest and told what kind of movie that this actually is: a historical drama that happens to include some battles? Then the movie would have appealed to the right kind of people: those who like to be seduced by the drama of dialogs and calm scenes. At the cinema I was sitting next to some teenagers that obviously was waiting for the great battles, and while waiting they were talking and "play fight" with each other. They were in addition totally unable to understand the impact of Christianity at that time and were lacking background knowledge of the historical events (just the word "Tempelridder"/"Knight Templar" made them laugh!). My point is that they had been fooled to see this movie instead of some other "Lord of the rings"-like movie.

2. The motion picture

The three books by Jan Guillou about Arn Magnusson are so extremely brilliant in construction of the story and in the build-up of the sentences. The only actions that had to be taken to make these books to a movie-success would simply be to translate the books into a manuscript! This would have given a brilliant drama movie with lots of conspiracies, political plots and a description of the forces that was between the rivaling families (as described in the first book). Unfortunately this movie never reaches an acceptable quality as a drama movie, nor as an action movie, but falls in between as unsuccessful in both genres! The life of Arn and the events in Sweden is told so swiftly and with so little depth that it is impossible to get familiar with the characters and to develop feelings for them. Do people that haven't read the book even get the chance to really understand the drama that happened at this time? Even Arn is described in few details, and it is impossible to understand his deep religiosity (trusting that everything that happens to him is God's will) and respect for all living creatures he developed during the years in the monastery. Instead, Arn is as a grown-up presented with an anxious and frightened look during the whole screenplay in Sweden. I am really sorry that the actor didn't get the chance to get deeper into his character. How would the audience be interested in the rest of the movie, if the feelings for Arn, Cecilia and the other persons are missing? (While reading the book, I even got feelings for Arn's horse! And that tells very much about the greatness of the books, and not about myself as a reader.)

The motion picture is stuffed with to many cliché scenes (children playing and running, Cecilia's joyful dancing in the garden, the free horse riding in the woods, love scenes) in addition to the motion of the camera itself: focusing on something exterior (the sky, tree tops, building etc.) and then slide into the center to capture the people.

3. Music

I am a person that is very fond of classical music, and have also interest in orchestral music in movies. Some music found in movies really has great quality and originality. However, I cannot give the same statement for the music in this movie. The music is too simple and flat! The clichés are so obvious and annoying: all joyful scenes are accorded to "beautiful" music of strings and woodwind. It really made me sick! And the few action scenes are accompanied by brass instruments and complete orchestra in a typical manner. Sorry, but this movie will not give you a great music experience.

Nevertheless, I should remark that I previously have read Guillou's books with great enthusiasm. My similar great disappointment of this first movie is thus inevitably coloring my comment posted here.

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13 out of 23 people found the following comment useful :-
A directorial overreach that entirely spoils the material, 17 January 2008

Author: mj_cge from Sweden

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I had expected something between a mediocre to average entertainment experience from this movie. Even so, it turned out to be a huge disappointment.

Starting with the narration in the beginning of the movie - as many point out, it's style is wholly inappropriate. The voice and intonation lacks gravity and seriousness, and makes you wonder whether this is a children's' movie, or perhaps a cheap nature documentary.

The child directing is poor (and/or the child casting). Several of these scenes have been edited to try to hide acting mistakes, and then dubbed, but mismatching dialog and mouth movements can clearly be discerned. Example: the scene where the two boys hold and talk about a bird.

After that, it quickly becomes obvious that two complex novels have been squeezed into a single movie. Although it's full of well-known actors, they don't get many lines, and there is no character development. No inner motivations or inner conflicts seem to exist and there's no evolution of any characters' personality and beliefs over time - although there is plenty of that in the books. Those deeper motivations are part of what makes these novels interesting, as a picture of beliefs and dogmas in Swedish nobility, medieval church, and the conflicting peoples and orders present in the holy land in this period! Instead, the characters appear rather simple-minded, and longer dialog has been substituted with cheap gestures and editing that tries to fit in too much story points into too few minutes. Example: The wooden sword that Arn just happens to hold in his hand for a second as his mother is submitted to the monastery (so simplistic, and totally out of line with his character's development in the book). Example: Arn steps in, on "impulse" and wholly unexplained, for his father at the judicial conflict.

Towards the second half of the movie I was at least hoping for well-done battles in the holy land. This turned out to be almost laughable however. Since the movie makers were unable to make any overview takes on the battle the director tries to compensate with closeups of Arn and Saladin, trying to give the impression that they're looking at each other - trying to make it a profound personal connection between foes that grudgingly respect each other. But since the conclusion that there are only a dozen or two soldier extras around them, and an overview shot would have revealed the pathetic size of the battle scene, it just ruins the scene more: If you can't make a scene feel naturally epic, don't try to fake it with a cliché! Given the extraordinary "squeeze" of story material into the 2+ hours of the movie, it's a total mystery that the movie makers insert irrelevant subplots such as the prestige conflict between Arn and a fellow officer in the Templar order. As it is portrayed, that conflict adds nothing to character depth and has no impact on the plot whatsoever.

Oh I almost forgot the score. There's constant music throughout the movie. It's never turned off. It's not *bad*, but it's not overly good either. And did I mention it's never turned off? It made me think of reality-TV-shows where they play dramatic music throughout the whole episode in an attempt to infuse drama where there is precious little of it. But since this movie has - at least on paper - much more substance than that, it ends up being quite distracting and it indicates the level of confidence the director and producer had in their dramatic capability.

It all boils down to that this is a strong story that can almost tell itself, if the movie makers would have just let it do so. But instead they needlessly overreach in style, substance and amount of plot points, and I left the theater feeling two things I haven't experienced after a movie in years: Palpable relief it was over, and wanting my money back.

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2 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Uuuk, 19 July 2008

Author: pago-2 from Sweden

I was expecting a great movie hearing all the good comments it got from my friends. However I was utterly disappointed last night when I saw it.

The title of the movie suggests that the movie is about a knight templar with the name Arn. Funnily though, you won't get to know mr Arn at all! Or any of the other emotionless characters in this film.

I'm not sure what the director thought about when he made this movie, but I guess he thought that he could make about 100 scenes with people saying 2-3 lines, then another 100 scenes of scenery. Cut them together like a zip-lock and then let the audience do the rest.

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13 out of 25 people found the following comment useful :-
Swedens best Hollywood copy ever!, 29 December 2007

Author: thomas_hallberg from Stocholm, Sweden

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

The film starts off with a kind of irritating and a bit ridiculous narrator voice that tells us about Arn and his upbringing, but after a while it goes away (luckally) :) To my surprise the movie was really cool and interesting and exciting to watch. I was literally on my toes throughout the whole movie. Another thing to complain about was Arn's time in Jerusalem, it was almost a remake of Orlando Blooms characters time there in "Kingdom of heaven". Defiantly worth watching and I am not surprised if this flick reaches out internationally. This is a must see for all of those who loved "Braveheart" and "Kingdom of heaven" etc etc.

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17 out of 33 people found the following comment useful :-
Not half bad., 25 December 2007

Author: finn-palm from Sweden

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Since this is Sweden's first big movie production you can't but expect it to have a children's disease or two, but in my opinion one can't expect Swedes who haven't shot anything but over-acted dramas in little cottages in the countryside for what feels like forever to faultlessly execute a desert battle on horseback for example. The step away from traditional movie making in Sweden towards bigger productions raise my grade and the inevitable misses bring it down. The sceneries were beautiful and the props were well made, but it was mostly too clean to lend complete credibility to the setting. Acting was not bad and emotional parts was indeed moving and didn't feel awkward or silly. On the downside I think one can easily get the feeling that it is indeed two books compressed into one movie, something that not even all the pretty props could compensate for. Finally the ending leaves you pretty much expecting the story to be continued in a second movie.

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Lone boy grows to become knight, saves Jerusalem and still gets the girl, 2 September 2008

Author: bwanabrad-1 from China

According to this recent, big budget production, Orlando Bloom did not save Jerusalem from the Saracens of Saladin, but the Knights Templar did, according to this Swedish alternative to the recent Ridley Scott epic, on the same topic. Maybe this film suffered in comparison with the more commercial Kingdom of Heaven, as this one came out just a couple of years after Scott's. Arn ( Nattervquist ) , is only a child when a local Swedish prince arrives to kill off a rival, ascend to the throne and send the rival's son ( Arn's friend the young prince Knut running to Norway to escape ). Young Arn then suffers a fall, and is given no chance of survival, so his mother in fear of his life, prays for him and offers his life in service to god. Miraculously he recovers, and so he is taken to the local monastery to become a monk. Here he is looked after by the two priests, ( Callow & Boulton ) they also provide him with an education. Boulton does more than that for the boy however, he is a former Knight Templar and sees the boy has skills with a bow and arrow, he also teaches the young boy how to use a sword. As the boy matures into a youth he also gives him a fine Arabian stallion. Young Arn then returns to his home village, where in quick succession he falls in love, deflowers a virgin, wins a duel against one of his family's enemies, helps his friend Knut kill and depose the king who had killed Knut's father, and finally is falsely accused of deflowering the sister of the woman he loves. For penance he is banned for 20 years and packed off to the crusades in the holy lands. The innocent girl is packed off to a convent. As it turns out, the convent is aligned to the side of the throne that is opposed to Arn's family, so the girl is treated harshly. Meanwhile Arn has a chance run in with Saladin, whom he rescues from bandits. Both men admire the other, for either their bravery, honour or both. Saladin is intent on conquering Jerusalem but Arn is sworn to defend it. My limited knowledge of the Templar Knights is that this portrayal of them is closer to what they would have been like, rather than the murderous Brendon Gleason version. The pious warrior Templar Knights are treated with much more sympathy in this film than the bloody thirsty bunch of cut throats in Kingdom of Heaven. One of their leaders however, Armand De Gascogne ( Wyndham ) is once again shown as a pompous oaf. After the siege is broken, Arn is given leave to return home. This is a lavish production in many ways, and those values shine through in many of the scenes. The acting is also of a high standard, with young Nattervquist and Helin given very good support from a strong supporting cast. The story takes time to develop and the multiple, complex tribal, political and religious alliances are examined in quite some detail. A very different style of film to Scott's as this one concentrates more on the individual drama of one man caught up in events, rather than concentrating on the rich visuals of Kingdom of Heaven.

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