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Contents © 1999
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

Kristin Lavransdatter

1995 Directed by Liv Ullman with Linus Aaberg, Gisken Armand
Available at Blockbuster Video

Ernie: A good, serious treatment of the ethics of love. It showed the two sides--one being what Kristin's aunt said, "Love obeys no laws; it breaks them all," the other being her parents' arranged marriage, love subordinate to duty. What you see in the film is the two sides meeting in the middle. Virtue is in the mean. Matthew: It wasn't just love from the loins vs. love from the will. Rather, the quality of love that is consuming of self, the sort of thing that sweeps over you. Ernie: Their first encounter wasn't just a sweaty romp in a meadow. They went off and pledged their love and then slept. The consuming power of love was there, and that lead to the pleasures of the loins. They knew they were soul mates, but they made the mistake of thinking that that excused their lust. Matthew: In any case, there was a bond between them that was something more than, "Let's mate." That's why he regretted their first encounter....

Matthew: She says, "When you sin, you trample others down." Ernie: An interesting way of saying sin is outside the natural order of things. Matthew: She's getting her first inklings of the body of Christ.

--Ernie Grimm and Matthew Lickona