Arn - Tempelriddaren

[IronHills Dwarf]

I'm sure our Scandinavian members will already be well aware of this one, based on some rather popular books I gather.

Anyways it's another period epic about a crusader. From doing a little reading it seems that it will be slightly less revisionist than KoH but still a little shaky on the history front (i.e. rather pro-muslim slanted, anti church, not all that well balanced). But maybe it'll be a nice surprise that way. Perhaps someone familiar with the books can correct my impressions, but the above is what I gathered fom wikipedia and a few other sources.

Looks good in terms of costuming and props, locations are split between Morocco (stand in for th Holy Land) and Sweden.

More info here:
http://imdb.com/title/tt0837106/

Trailer and images here:
http://www.arnmovie.com/

[Cuiel Rilwen]

I love the books and have read them several times. They are in my opinion well ballanced where religious preferences are concerned, dunno ofcourse about the movie. I'm wobbly in the knees over this one, hoping that they won't wreck the story. The author have, as far as I know, had a strong influence on how its made...which scares me equally much...not always a good thing that. Still I await it with anticipation.

[IronHills Dwarf]

Good to hear. I was somewhat worried because of the relationship that Arn has with Saladin and the anti Richard III stuff combined with abandoning the Holy Land to Saladin. I'm all for balanced films but after KoH I'm very leary of novelistic approaches that outright distort historical characters.

But as long as it's not blatent agnostic twaddle like KoH... lol

The attention to detail is truly stunning from what I've seen so far. It's got the most historically accurate film sword I think I've ever seen. :)

[Cuiel Rilwen]

The author Jan Guillou is quite thorrough...I've seen a documentary about the books and in it he shows how his story about Arn is built. He's done rather good research about the surrounding areasOn a local level. Among other things there is a church which was built in this period, which stands today near the place Arn is imagined to have been born...its entrance bears the mark of the Templars...a stone carving of a Templar knight who hands the gate key over to God. This is as I could understand highly unusual since the churches built in Scandinavia in that period mostly were dedicated to the Holy Mother Mary.

I guess you could say that there is a certain unhappiness with some of the Christian knights, but it is with their actions and selfish thinking rather than with Christianity in general. Arn is deeply religious and the monks who bring him up and teach him, and most of Arns fellow knights, are portrayed as God fearing and decent people. There seems to be some truth to the story about Saladin being rescued by a Templar, as it is repeted here. I have also read about this from several sources online...tho there is no name mentioned anywhere.

Not to make it seem as us Scandinavians are saints or anything...but even if the vikings were savage warriors they at least let people, even slaves, have their own faith and didn't try to convert them to theirs...and seeing as development always has been a little slow up here I don't find it hard to believe that people still would think like this even if they had been converted to christianity for some time...thus Arn might not see other religions as a threat to his own or think less of muslims or whatever.

I didn't have a lot of time to check out the website yesterday, but I couldn't help but notice that it's built a lot like the official LotR site! lol So shall we then...based on your good impression...hope that someone at least has been inspired by the thorroughness of PJ?! ;) Going t look at it once more.

[IronHills Dwarf]

Well I'm liking the sound of the project the more you tell me about it. :)

KoH just made me extremely jaded to mainstream attempts to tell stories within the Crusade period (doesn't help I did undergrad work on the period and thus am somewhat sensitive to details :p). What bugs me usually is characters who are not acting within the period - which nowdays seems to mean ignoring the massive factor of religion in the lives of characters at that time. Granted, being religious myself I have a bias, but I really am all for balanced films with regards to the Christian/Muslim conflict. Islam is a fascinating culture and religion at the time and Crusader/Muslim relations are often a surprisingly refreshing view into tolerence. But..... ;) Saladin is always a bugaboo for me as cinema seems to have him pinned as a saint whereas by modern standards (and I stress that last bit) he wasn't quite all that. ;) Although he is a fascinating character.

But knowing Arn maintains his faith is really excellent to hear, that it doesn't dilute the power of the story by bringing in modern agnostic/atheistic trends really gives me allot of hope that the story could be the most period correct film to come out in a long, long time.

Also the subject of small ethnic groups participating in the Crusades is a fascinating subject - be it Swedes or Nubians or interactions with the Zagwe dynasty in Ethiopia. Usually subjects that aren't mainstream and under researched.

Sorry for going offtrack.... :p I've heard rumors that the first film will appear in a longer TV mini-series format? Any truth to that, that you know of?

[Cuiel Rilwen]

Hmmmm the series you've heard of might be a documentary that has been shown on TV. I might be able to find out some more about this given a little time tho. I have the documentary on DVD but I'm not sure if there are english subtitles...I'll check that out and if there is I can always send it to you.

Arn most defo keeps his religion, the approach to muslim/christian interactions are at least in the books not atheist or agnsotic...rather respectful acceptance of one anothers beliefs. I'm sure Saladin wasn't an angel...no big leaders ever are. Jan Guillou himself is a highly critical person tho...never taking anything for granted and always questioning facts to look at it from several sides. A novel like this can never be completely correct...from more than obvious reasons...and an author ofcourse has the liberty to decide what fact or fiction should be in his story. However...the swedish museums have embraced these novels. I so hope they will do it justice.

[IronHills Dwarf]

Well sounds good enough to me. You've certainly reversed my initial reactions. :) I just had this bad feeling the brief plot description. It is of course important to get the full story before forming an opinion. Which thankfully has now happened. :)

Like I said on the costume and props front it really does look superb. Actually the sword for Arn looks to me like it was made by Peter Johnsson, one of the best contemporary smiths out there and a real stickler for accuracy.

[Cuiel Rilwen]

Well in that case I hope even more so this will prove to be a good venture! ;) The documentart sadly only has swedish subtitles so I don't suppose it will be of any use to you then? If you'd like a good read the books can be found at Amazon by search of the Crusades Trilogy.

What can be seen of costumes really does look good. I like the sword too, very simple and good looking. Hope the site will contain more imagery soon.

[Lessa]

This film looks very promising Cuiel I'll definitely watch out for it. Thanks

[Cuiel Rilwen]

Wow...Lessa...how nice to see your face in here again! How ya been? :)

Like with all loved stories I'm still a little worried that it gets ruined, but its good to have something to look forward to and I await it with great anticipation!

I dug up a link where there is a little info in english about the TV-series "In Arns Footsteps", (http://www.arnmagnusson.se/) there is an english version of the site available. I've subscribed for a newsletter about the project, will keep you up do date with whatever interesting news that comes my way. :)

[Lessa]

I've been here but there hasn't been much I wanted to say. I've been good what about yourself?

The more I see of this film the more interested I get. In fact I will even seek out the books.

[Cuiel Rilwen]

I'm good too! :)

The books are fab read, I ate them up in no time!

[Nereid]

I've just read the first one and sort of liked it. Not a favourite one though, maybe among swedish authors though. But I'd definitly wanna see the movie though. Would be cool.

I don't have much favour for our swedish films though, there is no swedish film I like. But this one actually looks good. lol

[Cuiel Rilwen]

I have just arrived from a very ratty vacation but one thing that was good was that Swedish Film had had the excellent idea of showing us medieval fruitcakes a 10 minute preview of the Arn-films! It was produced for foreign movie-buyers originally, and so fat it hasn't been shown anywhere else than in Visby. And I must say it does look promising, for the first time since LotR I really look forward to a movie! Or movies really there will be two...which doesn't bother me one bit!

[Lessa]

well lotr really showed the way to having an unfinished story after just one film si not the disaster it used to be. Audiences are willing to come back for more.