User reviews

Finally I saw this film on a college campus viewing in 1969 and tried to have a discussion about it with a stranger....big mistake. This is no light-weight film.

Yes there is the storyline fact that he left his wife and children. Also the way they solved their problem is revolting to our western sensibilities who like to find living solutions to problems (with notable exceptions).

But consider the pace of the film, each second of life was dear and sweet, the music gave focus to the sunlight. She was beautiful in youth (the worshiped idol of the 60's and on). He was caught in his love for her, a grasp at life as with the one you love, trapped in the amber of film, forever.

The young couple were living without a plan for the future, not unusual when you're young. Their natural vitality gave a calm pleasure to each segment of dialog free film. A snippet of life savored. One wonders: Is old age our souls' goal?

Yes the audience is practical, steal a chicken, flee the country, do something. And if so how is their love and beauty made to stand before us? Tragedy is necessary.

Now, I'm much older, but still, once every so often I will see an Elvira walk by, I hold my breath and marvel and am pleased that the world still has room for more such Elviras. Grace and beauty.

Since that time, with the perspective from the artists' work I can see a world that would have been only guessed by me, perhaps in a dream; thanks to Elvira Madigan.

Remarkable sometimes impressionistic photo and some scenes are just so beautiful! Oh I wish I was in his place out on that meadow... After Goyokin this is the most beautiful film I've seen. The story is perhaps a little weak, especially in the need. Very few dialogues. The music is of course good since it's Mozart. 4 out of 5.

As did a previous reviewer, I too saw this movie in 1967 in an "art house" theater in Boston, and have been affected and haunted by it ever since. The beauty of a film with spare dialogue, fabulous and touching cinematography, and an indelibly imprinted sound track, entered my young adult brain and took up residence. Who knew that many years later, I would spend time in both Denmark and Sweden, visiting the places where the couple spent time on Tåsinge and in Svendborg, as well as the places where it was filmed in Nordjylland, and feeling as if I had been there before, even down to the sounds of the buzzing insects in the meadows and beach grass. Such films should touch more people. I am glad it is out on DVD, although I have only seen it on VHS. Suspend your computer and 3D expectations, and revel in the feelings.

One of the simple pleasures of life is to sit in a darkened theater and have a film capture your soul, not as a single person, but as the whole sigh of the room. I saw this in 1967 in Boston, in a makeshift theater. This was at the height of the flower revolution, when Boston was the intellect of the emerging 'counter' culture.

This film found a hungry audience -- we and it fed each other. At the same time down the road were Hollywood projects on (what we though was) the same notion: passion before everything, and the purer the passion the clearer the beauty. Life matters less than living. 'Bonnie and Clyde,' and 'The Graduate' seemed slick and pale in comparison then and more so now.

For decades, I recalled many of the images:

-- the raspberries and cream (which she bought by selling her image)

-- her luminescence, her dainty vomit, the fish in her skirt, the attentive query about eggs

-- the fainting when she is discovered by innocence (which we ourselves did at the very beginning through the same child's eyes)

-- 'There are times when you don't question the cost'

and of course:

-- the release of the butterfly, and the reluctance of the filmmaker to let us release the image.

This film succeeds because it is so simple, but its simplicity is not accidental. The notion of equating Elvira with the music by bringing the musicians into the story shows extraordinary skill. I can think of no other case where a classic piece of music is renamed because of a film.

At the time, I recall great discussion of the book Sixten carried around. Like Hamlet's book, it 'mattered,' but I have forgotten its importance. I remember much in the underground press about the self-referential nature: the passion and beauty of the characters and so with the film: the simple commitment to no plan of both: and the accepting of the consequences by both for meditative obsession.

But another of the simple pleasures of life is to live long enough to see two of ourselves: the recalled initial engagement with the film and the current one. I wish this pleasure on all of you. Oh how we have all changed. (I strongly suspect that no person who was not there will find any traction with this film, but perhaps others like it.)

And watching this now, I discover I'm more of an 'In the Mood for Love' kind of guy. Same ethic. Same commitment to enter the unknown. But the passion if stronger is more diffuse and less selfish. I recommend seeing both films. Let me know.

I had the pleasure, and good fortune to see this film on the big screen. It exemplifies classic beauty, one is reminded of Renoir paintings. The film uses landscape to reveal inner emotions, a rarity these days. The structure reveals the final outcome in the beginning, leaving us with is an examination of a process so lovingly portrayed by Widerberg, a process so perfectly focused -- a delicate, lyrical love story -- quite an achievement.

This is a very pretty movie (apart from the occasionally out of focus shots)--with exquisite scenery. That, combined with the background music, it looked almost like an extended music video! The music, by the way, was Mozart and Vivaldi (2 of my favorites) but it was often too loud--dominating the action on the screen. It is VERY unusual to see a movie before the 1980s that does this, so the movie artistically took some risks. The negative for me was the story itself--I just didn't care much for the characters (especially when I later found that he left his wife AND kids for the lovely Elvira) and it was not especially deep story. It's a decent film but won't change your life.

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon.)

This really is a beautiful movie, exquisite in detail, gorgeously filmed, directed with great subtlety and intensely focused. Nothing wasted or thrown away here. Everything counts. We feel the forebodings of tragedy first in the straight razor in Sixten's hand as he caresses the back of Elvira's head, and then again there is the knife on their picnics, stark, solid, sharp steel in the paradise of their love. Note too the shots on her belly. The child touches her stomach. She vomits from eating flowers...

To really appreciate this movie it should be understood that it was filmed in the sixties and it represented to that audience something precious and true. Note the anti-war sentiment seemingly tangential to the story of the film, but nonetheless running as a deep current underneath. He was an army deserter, like those in the sixties who fled to Canada to avoid the draft and the body bags in Vietnam. Note his confrontation with his friend from the regiment, a scene that many in the sixties lived themselves. He gave up everything for love, but it really is her story, her choice. She chose a man with a wife and two children, a soldier. She had many other choices, as the friend reminded her, but for her he was the "last one." What they did was wrong, but it was indeed a summer of love, the cold northern winter in the distance, ripe red raspberries and mushrooms to eat and greenery everywhere and the sun brilliant and warm; and then in the next to the last scene with the children when she faints as the child pulls off the blindfold of the game and is surprised to face Elvira's belly, there is just a little snow on the ground, perhaps it is from the last winter, not completely melted.

If you can watch this without a tear in your eye and a melancholy feeling about the nature of human love, you have grown too old. Theirs was a forbidden love, like that of Romeo and Juliet, a tragic love, doomed from the start, which is why the ending of the movie is revealed in the opening credits. Those who think a story is spoiled by knowing the ending, know not the subtle ways of story, of great tales that are told again and again. Knowing the ending only sharpens the senses and heightens the appreciation.

Pia Degermark who plays Elvira, who is a tightrope walker, a girl of gypsies, has beautiful calves (which is all we see of her body), a graceful style and gorgeous eyes, made up in the unmistakable style of the sixties, very dark with long heavily mascara'ed eyelashes. And she is a flower child, a fairy child of the forest, drawn to things earthy and mysterious, to a strong young man and a fortune teller who finds for her only small black spades in her future. In life we chase after butterflies. Sometimes we catch one.

I saw this film when it came out in the 1960's. It is loosely based on a true story of two lovers, a beautiful tightrope dancer and a married Army Lieutenant, who run away together in the late 1800's. I was blown away by the sheer beauty of this film. There are no car chases or explosions. Instead, it brings you close to nature with the sights and sounds of the fields and trees, the wind, sumptuous berries, bird songs and crickets. Their love plays out within some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen. It runs almost in real time, quietly moving their story along. This film left a lasting impression on me for decades. I loved it.

I remember seeing a television commercial for classical music records which was frequently on American television in the 1970's. It played a shot from this movie while selling "Mozart's Love Theme from Elvira Madigan." I never bought the records, but I always wanted to see the movie. Mozart's beautiful music with a pretty, young blond Swedish woman chasing butterflies on a sunny day in a park seemed a great scene to me. I assumed it would be a great movie.

Let me say that my wife and I generally enjoy period pieces and romantic movies. Give us any Jane Austen/Charlotte Bronte movie and we're enthralled. We also love the art-house films of the 50's and 60's. We've seen all of Federico Fellini's movies and many by Ingmar Bergman. Theoretically, we should have been the perfect audience for this film.

My wife made it through the first 25 minutes and then said "I'm going to bed". I tried to convince her to stay and promised her that it would get better, "It had too." I suggested, but to no avail. I stayed through the whole movie, waiting for something interesting to happen. I'm still waiting.

The scene in the television commercial of the blond young woman chasing butterflies, is not just one scene in the movie, it is the whole movie. It is a scene repeated over and over again. Okay, that's not totally true, there are a few other things that happen in the movie, for example, the woman sits listening to a string quartet.

It is just that the story doesn't really progress and the characters and their feelings remain mysteries. This is really a quite lifeless and drab romance. There is no real feeling here, just pretty images of wooden mannequins set to music. It gets pretty dull quickly and at the 25 minute mark, you too, might feel like going to bed.

I only have a vague memory of this film from the one viewing I had as a youth back at the time it was released. I suppose the film itself was fine. There's no disagreement with other reviewers about it being romantic and pretty, and actually rather good in that respect. To what extent I sympathized with it was entirely a function of my situation at the time and is beside the point here. What has troubled me increasingly since then as I grew to appreciate Mozart better, is that the 2nd movement of K. 466 should become so singularly and indelibly attached in public to this film. Again, I have nothing against the theme being used here, and it may have been a good choice too. It's really nobody's fault, but Mozart's music, particularly a piece as great as this, must after all transcend and defy confinement to a particular vision such as that projected by Elvira Madigan.

Breathtakingly beautiful photography & music help to make this movie the finest love story I've seen. It's based on a true story that took place in 1859, although the movie is set at a somewhat later date. It's hard to imagine that these two young people, so full of life & love for each other, would choose the option they did to resolve their problems, but part of what this movie shows us is the inability of these two "upper class" individuals (Lt. Sparre is a Count, an aristocrat, & Elvira is a world famous circus performer who is mentioned in newspaper articles & a book) to cope with life once it has beeen altered beyond what they have been accustomed to deal with. If you choose not to read the subtitles, you'll still enjoy the movie for its visual beauty & the terrific music by Mozart & Vivaldi. Ironically, the drawing Elvira pawns for pennies is by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec!!

I'm glad I finally had the opportunity to watch this movie. I can remember when it came out but was not in a location where it was available. Also, I didn't know this was based on a true story prior to watching it. If you like a good love story you should enjoy it. If you like a movie that is visually beautiful you should enjoy it. If you like both you should love it, as I did. If you like neither it's worth a look anyway. Who knows, you might surprise yourself.

(This is NOT a spoiler coming up--it pops up before the opening credits). This takes place in Sweden in 1859. A Swedish army lieutenant named Sixten Sparre (Thommy Berggren) runs away with a famous tightrope walker Hedwig "Elvira" Madigan (Pia Degermark). They committed suicide in a forest in Denmark. This is their story. We meet them when they're already on the run. He abandoned a wife, two kids and his job. They're madly in love but have to keep on the run. They want to live away from society but find that suicide is the only possible way to be together forever.

I've wanted to see this for years. The only time I saw it was on TV ages ago. It was dubbed with a terrible print and so faded that it appeared the film was in black and white! I finally got the Korean DVD and it is GORGEOUS! The color is bright and strong and the cinematography takes your breath away. Seriously--I've seen hundreds of films and this has got to be the most beautiful ever. There's music by Mozart, the couple are both attractive people (Degermark especially is stunning). There's not much of a story but the scenery is so gorgeous you won't care. This also has a brief sex scene with no nudity but it still is very erotic. Also one sequence stands out--they have a fight and Sixten apologizes by floating an apology down a stream to her. I gotta admit--that scene got to me:) This has no rating but would easily get by with a G today.

This is a film for romantics only! Some people (mostly guys) will probably find it corny and/or boring but others (like me) will love it. This was a big hit with teenagers back in 1967 but seems to have faded away. Too bad - it's incredibly beautiful. Recommended highly!

What was in the air in the 60s? Zeferelli's Romeo and Juliet. Blue Oyster Cult's Don't Fear the Reaper. And Elvira Madigan. "Stay Beautiful, Die Young" was Blondie later, but that's the basic emotion.

And helpfully, you know when you should feel an emotion, because they suddenly play the Mozart or Vivaldi or whatever else.

Ridiculous story of two idiots. Instead of simply enjoying a nice fling, they destroy their careers, in his case also abandoning a wife and kids. And then he figures out that as a broke Aristocrat and deserting cavalry officer, there are not a lot job openings for the likes of him.

At one point he even makes a little speech that any hippy would dig, about how people change and you should just darn well be able to do whatever takes your fancy. Like dump your family for a hot blonde. So groovy!

Beautiful film, though. Pia was absolutely gorgeous.

So if you're sixteen, or emotionally sixteen, and in love with love, this is the movie for you!

For most, the category of 'foreign film' carries an effect comparable to a sleeping pill, and while I am not proud enough to exempt myself from that majority, "Elvira Madigan" was really pushing it. The film itself is beautiful to look at--not a single location or actor looks dolled-up by Hollywoodian gloss (in essence, it is as if we could step outside and see this landscape if we were alive in the late 1800s), and the story--in its initial stages, anyway--is adequately captivating. We follow a military deserter named Sixen (Thommy Berggren) who is enraptured by Elvira (Pia Degermark), a tightrope-walker, as they wander across the countryside and share a romance. I tried to keep myself from reading into the film too much, and found myself getting sheepish the further it progressed--Sixen and Elvira roll around in a grassy field, make love, wander into a small town, share minor (meant to be profound) sentiments on the human condition, and are accompanied by redundant selections of classical music (seeming to act as a stand-in for character and emotion) every step of the way; this is the cyclical setup for the film. The ending signifies a marked contrast from what has gone on before, and doesn't necessarily work, since we are never truly convinced of the couple's desperation--or personality. Perhaps I was spoiled when I watched Francois Truffaut's "Jules et Jim" a few weeks ago, as it is a superior examination of a multi-faceted love affair; though even had I not seen it, "Elvira Madigan" would still come across as a half-realized, underdeveloped narrative with delusions of grandeur.

My fiance and I just watched Elvira Madigan on FLIX. It's up there with the best of love stories...Love Story, Forever Young & Romeo & Juliet. It's a great movie, and if you're in the mood for a good movie about true love, watch the 1967 Swedish version (with English subtitles) of Elvira Madigan.

One last thing, for those who didn't like this movie, just simply lost touch with what true love means to them.

I loved the movie so much I felt like I was in the theater and the actors were like two pieces of a puzzle.

I happened to watch this film, about 20 years ago, on 14-inch-screen TV. I don't remember the details of the film now. However, the touching feeling that I had from the film still remain in my mind. Especially, the cinematography was so beautiful.

The 14-inch-screen-TV might not be a proper device for fully enjoying the cinemas, especially for this type of art films. However, even on 14-inch-screen, this film impressed me with its beautiful scenes. Now, I don't recall most of its scenes. My memory of actual scenes was pretty much faded by time but in my mind, the aftertaste of this film still remain the same as when I watched the beautiful impressionist paintings. I think the director expressed very well the inner feelings of the leads through cinematography. For me, this film was such beautiful and powerful.

The classical piano piece that was flowing though out the film was also very good. I'd like to watch this film again on a huge screen and to have the touching feeling from this tragic but pure and powerful love story again.