This is a great movie offering from Sweden although it will
depress you to view it in its entirety if you have any sensitivity
on the issues that are raised in it.

You may be familiar with some of the history of the great Irish
spirited folk who  were sent packing from Britain and headed to
a lovely land today they call  Australia. It is my sincere view
that some of the best examples of greatest British spirits
are in fact in this region or from this region as the case may
be.

The harsh treatment and insanely cruel standards of  justice
have often been applied in times of great economic depression
or in areas devoid of real spiritual guidance in favour of
religious or other ideas of a similar fundamentalist nature
in even the extreme too perhaps

This movie speaks to the issues of harsh justice and the grief
that befalls a fine young couple that you see above. The man is
quite Irish spirited as we understand  the genre and the lovely
wife with him is in fact well meaning and well intentioned for
him and grief is all that we see come in this tragic tale of
cruelty that seems to  find little to comfort those suffering
in the circumstances of near starvation  conditions and the
extremely harsh penalties meted out in these conditions as I 
refer to above here. He has erred against his community in the
tale which is being told here, however it is still my contention
that the sentence was harshly administered and no doubt too
lengthy perhaps too The moral of the story I suggest is that
when someone does something wrong, that is not a valid enough
reason or excuse rather to do something insanely harsh by way
of punishment in order to consider some kind of justice done.

The Irishman in the movie did err against his community at large
while trying to do for his own family, However I don't think
understanding sufficient to his spirit prevailed to make for a
reasonable outcome for all concerned. Sometimes all that a
good enough person needs is a talking to or a warning or even
a slap on the wrist. On the other hand for those that do evil
with intent to be that way (and that certainly isn't something
this man should be accused of), whatever sanctions - even
extreme that may apply may be insufficient to do true and
real justice to serve the community in a real way.

Where truly lovely spirits can be found, a lighter approach to
punishments should be taken in matters such as this as that is
punishment enough if the person concerned is a conscionable
nice enough person to take a point and seek to improve his
behaviour if he can accept the wisdom of it, which he should be
able to in such a case.


Michael Rizzo Chessman
(moviesbyrizzo)