The Brothers Lionheart

The Brothers Lionheart (1977)

Bröderna Lejonhjärta

From our world. To the world of the tales and the camp fires.

After brothers Jonathan and Crusty pass away, they reunite in Nangijala, the land of eternal spring. Casting a long shadow over their world is the tyrant Tengil, ruler of the country Karmanjaka, where he’s building his new fortress up in the Ancient Mountains.

Date of release
1977-09-23
TMDB
6.7 / 10 (113)
Runtime
1h 42m
Genres
Adventure, Fantasy, Family
Director
Olle Hellbom

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: The Brothers Lionheart
  • Filmed in: Tomelilla, Stockholm, Österlen, Aarhus, Denmark, and Iceland
  • Awards: 2 · Nominations: 0. Including: Guldbagge Award for Best Director; Greta

The Brothers Lionheart is a Swedish fantasy film which was released to cinemas in Sweden on 23 September 1977, directed by Olle Hellbom and based on the 1973 book of the same name, written by Astrid Lindgren. It won Sweden's Guldbagge Award for Best Director in 1978.

Production

The film was shot in Sweden, Denmark and Iceland. Filming locations included Stockholm for studio interiors and the openings sequence, while Skåne County in Sweden and Århus in Jutland represented Nangijala, while Þingvellir and Dimmuborgir 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 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, war, suicide and forced labour of nigh-Holocaustian reminiscence. Most of the named characters do not survive the film (although its setting in concurrent realities soften this fact).

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iconic adaptations, and films overall, although several technical aspects, such as the Katla model, are considered well out of date, and several lines from the film are widely culturally understood and in widespread use, such as "All power to Tengil, our liberator!"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: All makt åt Tengil, vår befriare!), a truism (used ironically out of context) pronounced…

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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