''The Brothers Lionheart'' ( sv, Bröderna Lejonhjärta) is a Swedish fantasy film which was released to cinemas in Sweden on 23 September 1977, directed by

Olle Hellbom Nils Olof "Olle" Hellbom (8 October 1925 – 5 June 1982) was a Swedish film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is most famous for directing films based on novels by Astrid Lindgren. His 1960 film ''Alla vi barn i Bullerbyn'' was entered ...

and based on the 1973 book of the same name, written by

Astrid Lindgren Astrid Anna Emilia Lindgren (; ; 14 November 1907 – 28 January 2002) was a Swedish writer of fiction and screenplays. She is best known for several children's book series, featuring Pippi Longstocking, Emil of Lönneberga, Karlsson-on- ...

. It won Sweden's

Guldbagge Award The Guldbagge Awards ( sv, Guldbaggen, en, Gold scarab) is an official and annual Swedish film awards ceremony honoring achievements in the Swedish film industry. Winners are awarded a statuette depicting a rose chafer, better known by the nam ...

for

Best Director Best Director is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organizations, festivals, and people's awards. It may refer to: Film awards * AACTA Award for Best Direction * Academy Award for Best Director * BA ...

in 1978.

Selected cast

* Lars Söderdahl as Karl "Skorpan" Lion(-heart) *

Staffan Götestam Per Staffan Götestam (born 20 May 1952 in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden) is a Swedish actor, director, theatre chief, playwright and founder of Junibacken. He is best known as Jonatan in ''The Brothers Lionheart''. He is brother to Birgitta Götesta ...

as Jonatan Lion(-heart) * Allan Edwall as Mattias *

Gunn Wållgren Gunn Wållgren (born Gunnel Margaret Haraldsdotter Wållgren; ; 16 November 1913 – 4 June 1983) was a Swedish actress. Considered one of Sweden's better actresses, Wållgren was famous for her fragile and sensual way of acting and her inne ...

as Sofia *

Folke Hjort Folke Karl-Gustav Hjort (28 March 1934 – 3 July 1977) was a Swedish actor. A prolific theatre actor of his time, he is now most recognised for his role as Jossi in Olle Hellbom's adaption of ''The Brothers Lionheart (film), The Brothers Lionhe ...

as Jossi *

Per Oscarsson Per Oscar Heinrich Oscarsson (28 January 1927 – 31 December 2010) was a Swedish actor. He is best known for his role in the 1966 film ''Hunger'', which earned him a Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor. Early life Oscarsson was born, along ...

as Orvar * Tommy Johnson as Hubert *

Jan Nygren Jan Nils Johan Nygren (10 April 1934 – 28 November 2019) was a Swedish actor, well known for his role as Karlsson (Karlsson's voice) in ''Karlsson-on-the-Roof''. Selected filmography *1973 - '' Emil och griseknoen'' *1973 - '' Någonstans i Sve ...

as Veder, Tengil's soldier * Michael "Micha" Gabay as Kader, Tengil's soldier *

Georg Årlin Georg Adolf Wilhelm Årlin (30 December 1916 – 27 June 1992) was a Swedish film actor who appeared in 50 films between 1940 and 1988. Born in Rödeby, a southern Sweden locality in Blekinge County's Karlskrona Municipality, Georg Årlin di ...

as Tengil *

Bertil Norström Per Bertil Norström (9 September 1923 – 6 September 2012) was a Swedish actor. Born in Sala, he was married to the actress Margreth Weivers from 1947 until his death. Selected filmography *1956 - '' The Staffan Stolle Story'' *1967 - ''I Am ...

as Pjuke, Tengil's advisor

Production

The film was shot in Sweden,

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark ...

and

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

. Filming locations included

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

for studio interiors and the openings sequence, while

Skåne County Skåne County ( sv, Skåne län, link=no ), sometimes referred to as Scania County in English, is the most southern county, or , of Sweden, basically corresponding to the traditional province Scania. It borders the counties of Halland, Kronobe ...

in Sweden and

Århus Aarhus (, , ; officially spelled Århus from 1948 until 1 January 2011) is the second-largest city in Denmark and the seat of Aarhus municipality, Aarhus Municipality. It is located on the eastern shore of Jutland in the Kattegat sea and app ...

Jutland Jutland ( da, Jylland ; german: Jütland ; ang, Ēota land ), known anciently as the Cimbric or Cimbrian Peninsula ( la, Cimbricus Chersonesus; da, den Kimbriske Halvø, links=no or ; german: Kimbrische Halbinsel, links=no), is a peninsula of ...

represented Nangijala, while and

Dimmuborgir Dimmuborgir (''dimmu'' "dark", ''borgir'' "cities" or "forts", "castles"; pronounced ) is a large area of unusually shaped lava fields east of Mývatn in Iceland. The Dimmuborgir area is composed of various volcanic caves and rock formations, re ...

in Iceland represented the lands of Tengil. Upon release, unique for adaptations of Lindgren’s work, it was given an 11 certificate by the Swedish board of censors, causing the

Riksdag The Riksdag (, ; also sv, riksdagen or ''Sveriges riksdag'' ) is the legislature and the supreme decision-making body of Sweden. Since 1971, the Riksdag has been a unicameral legislature with 349 members (), elected proportionally and se ...

to enact an age limit of 7 and above for future films. The film nevertheless maintained the age limit of 11 and above for years until a 7 limit, called “Lex Lejonhjärta”, was deemed acceptable. The source work is widely considered, although the violent content is much toned down on screen, the most political and violent of Lindgren’s books, involving themes of dictatorship, occupation, treason,

democide Democide is a term coined by American political scientist Rudolph Rummel to describe "the intentional killing of an unarmed or disarmed person by government agents acting in their authoritative capacity and pursuant to government policy or high ...

war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...

and forced labour of nigh-

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

ian reminiscence. Most of the named characters do not survive the film (although its setting in concurrent realities soften this fact). In a cruel quirk of fate, actor

drowned in a diving accident less than three months before its release, a fate shared with his character in the film and book. Nevertheless, it has maintained its place as one of the most beloved and iconic adaptations, and films overall, although several technical aspects, such as the Katla model, are considered well out of date, and several lines from the film are widely culturally understood and in widespread use, such as “All power to Tengil, our liberator!” (in original

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

: ''All makt åt Tengil, vår befriare!''), a

truism A truism is a claim that is so obvious or self-evident as to be hardly worth mentioning, except as a reminder or as a rhetorical or literary device, and is the opposite of falsism. In philosophy, a sentence which asserts incomplete truth conditio ...

(used ironically out of context) pronounced to proclaim loyalty and submission to the

autocratic Autocracy is a system of government in which absolute power over a state is concentrated in the hands of one person, whose decisions are subject neither to external legal restraints nor to regularized mechanisms of popular control (except per ...

occupational power of Lord Tengil of Karmanjaka.

Reception

Box office

In Sweden, the film grossed at the box office. Its screenings were attended by 553,000 people.

Differences from the novel

Although the film mostly stays true to the book some notable differences can be seen. *In the novel Hubert is described having long, curly red hair and a big, bristly beard, while actor Tommy Johnson had short, normal red hair and a moustache. *In the novel, Jonatan rescues one of Tengil's soldiers who is later killed in the battle. This soldier does not appear in the film. *In the book when Karl tries to find Jonatan one night, he stays in a cave where he suddenly gets surrounded by angry wolves but is quickly saved by Hubert. This is omitted in the film. *In the book Jossi tells Veder and Kader about Karl after getting the "Katla mark" on his chest. In the film when he arrives, he tells them before getting labeled with the mark. *In the novel the "Katla mark" is a dragonhead. It was a flame in the film. *Veder and Kader's fate is not shown. In the book they are killed by Orvar and Sofia. *In the book, Mattias dies at some point during the final battle against Tengil's forces. In the film, he is killed by a thrown spear before the battle starts after one of Tengil's men sees him release a white dove carrying a message to Orvar. *Karm, the

lindworm The lindworm (''worm'' meaning snake), also spelled lindwyrm or lindwurm, is a mythical creature in Northern and Central European folklore living deep in the forest that traditionally has the shape of a giant serpent monster. It can be seen as a ...

is omitted completely. Karm is described in the novel as Katla's enemy and that he has been around since the dawn of time awaiting the moment he will get to kill Katla. As he is restricted to water and Katla to land, this has been impossible until Jonatan pushes a rock onto Katla, making her fall into the Karma Falls. In the film, Katla is simply knocked over a ledge by the rock dislodged by Jonatan and perishes in a pool of boiling mud. *The ending is softened a bit and does not explicitly show the brothers committing suicide.

Critical response

The film was well received by Swedish critics. Often interpreting the film in contemporary terms, they compared Staffan Götestam's portrayal of Jonatan to

Che Guevara Ernesto Che Guevara (; 14 June 1928The date of birth recorded on /upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Ernesto_Guevara_Acta_de_Nacimiento.jpg his birth certificatewas 14 June 1928, although one tertiary source, (Julia Constenla, quoted ...

, and Georg Årlin's portrayal of Tengil to

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...

Augusto Pinochet Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (, , , ; 25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean general who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, first as the leader of the Military Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981, being declared President of ...

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

and

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolution ...

Accolades

* 1978

for Best Direction (Olle Hellbom) * 1978

Berlin International Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (german: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin), usually called the Berlinale (), is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festi ...

, OCIC Award (Special Mention) :*

Golden Bear The Golden Bear (german: Goldener Bär) is the highest prize awarded for the best film at the Berlin International Film Festival. The bear is the heraldic animal of Berlin, featured on both the coat of arms and flag of Berlin. History The winn ...

nomination (Olle Hellbom) * 1982

Fantafestival The Mostra internazionale del film di fantascienza e del fantastico (English: ''International Science Fiction and Fantasy Film Show''), commonly known as Fantafestival, is a film festival devoted to science fiction, fantasy and horror film tha ...

, Best Direction (Olle Hellbom)

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Brothers Lionheart 1977 films 1970s fantasy films Swedish fantasy films 1970s Swedish-language films 1970s children's fantasy films Films about brothers Films about dragons Films about orphans Films based on fantasy novels Films based on Swedish novels Films based on works by Astrid Lindgren Films directed by Olle Hellbom Films scored by Björn Isfält Films whose director won the Best Director Guldbagge Award Films shot in Sweden Films shot in Denmark Films shot in Iceland Films about death Swedish children's films 1970s Swedish films