Edvard Munch (1974)

First of all, this was filmed in a pseudo-documentary manner. This film was shot in Norway and
Sweden, 1974. Very interesting fact is that the cast consists of non professional actors. They
were chosen just because of their similarity to real persons and because of their political and
religion beliefs.

Actually, there were a lot of conflicts in this film between family members, between people with
different thoughts about current government and politics of Norway, between different people
with different beliefs in religion and different life. And main climax consist of eternal conflicts,
and all they merge into one thing – main hero. There is no like usual resolution ore something
like that. It’s just life story.

A brief synopsis of the story is in Edvard Munk’s biography. Half of his family dies of phthisis.
He lives in horrible social conditions, that surround him. Norwegian society is divided into two
groups: conservative and the rest, like nihilists, anarchists, fighters for equality of rights and so
on. And this is the main basis for all the conflicts through the film. And of course Edvard and his
father choose different positions, so that is the main idea.

In my opinion this film is just great. It consists of contrasts. Here we can see poor children,
working 11 hours a day in factory and after that author shows us gloss and bohemia of rich
people, walking down Karl Johan Street. This is for sure one of the best films about painters.