So after my successful discovery of Story of Women (well, being successful in literally finding it, not that I thought the film was successful for me 
) I decided to go back to the root of why I had a mooch around for that and dug around for a Catherine Deneuve film from the 80s as they are so scarce. As with Huppert, I was successful in finding one and as with Huppert, it wasn't a very good film.
I found Hôtel des Amériques (Hotel America) and watched it online as the prospect of Deneuve being directed by André Téchiné is always intriguing. Sadly, this is probably the least interesting film I've seen Deneuve in. The basic story is that Deneuve is a pill popping anaesthetist who almost runs over Patrick Dewaere. He stays with her all night in a cafe and then pursues her because she's, as his friend puts it, the most beautiful woman in the world. The whole drama fails to convince because of the way the relationship is drawn, it's unbelievable his simple persistance would wear down a stand-offish Deneuve so easily and it then beggars belief that she becomes the one fighting for the relationship. Very nicely shot as Téchiné's usually are, but it drags a fair bit and it becomes impossible to care about what's happening to either character. It's the sort of character a more intuitive actress, like an Emmanuelle Béart would have more joy with as she's the type who plays emotions/situations rather than getting into specific character work, but she wasn't around back then. Deneuve tries her best, but while she's good, she can't really save the film and her efforts are in vain.
Continuing my recent Swedish tilt (including a pretty good Wallander on Monday which I'll hold off on talking about here until the series is over) and specifically after Everlasting Moments, I went back over Jan Troell. His films simply aren't available here so I decided that seeing as the subtitles are now online for his legendary The Emigrants and The New Land (Utvandrarna and Nybyggarna) that I'd download them and watch them properly (I took a look without the subs over a year ago and watched them with detailed plot outlines in hand to get a feel for them). I also tried to get The Flight of the Eagle (Ingenjör Andrées luftfärd) but incredibly annoyingly that torrent ended at 85% 
. Oh well, at least I got the big ones.
The Emigrants is a film with rare accolades, not only is it one of the few films that got nominated at the Oscars in two different years (first in the foreign language category, then in all the other categories the following year - AMPAS has since closed that loophole, thus denying people like Bruno Ganz in Downfall even a *chance* at an acting nomination) but also it is one of only 8 foreign language films to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. The most immediately striking thing about this film is that while it's almost three hours long, there is such an economy of storytelling, getting across great time periods very quickly with the minimum of length, but maximising the imagery to ensure nothing is missed.
It's the story of a farmer in Sweden, his wife and his brother, who all endure various miseries before deciding to become the first people from their area to emigrate to America. Ullmann is magnificent, the absolute highlight of which being her scenes with Von Sydow on the boat. Monica Zetterlund is also very impressive as the born again whore, as is Allan Edwall as the excommunicated unordained priest, who are part of the party of emigrating Swedes. Troell's work as a cinematographer is a standout on the technical side, whereas the score is a tad uneven, sometimes it adds greatly to the story but at other times it's just there for the sake of it. Only a minor flaw though, the setting is perfectly captured and the end is a very satisfactory stopping point before the next film takes over.
That next film came a year later to complete the story and it's one of the cases of the sequel edging out the original film. The difference in the acting is that while Liv is almost as good as before, Max ups his performance as he's given a lot more to do and Eddie Axberg as the brother Robert completely nails the third of the film he's in. The Robert flashbacks are as close to pure cinema as I've found in the 1970s, virtually silent, yet showing both what happened whilst conveying how it was for the characters. What this has that the other film doesn't is moments of heart-stopping tension, horror and emotion as the film lyrically ebbs its way towards its achingly melancholic conclusion. It's just marvellous stuff, were it not for Everlasting Moments, one might be forgiven for thinking that they don't make them like these any more, but with a talent as rare as Troell's, the old football maxim that "form is temporary, class is permanent" more than holds up to scrutiny here.