Gunnar Björnstrand

A traveling magician bringing his potions and mystical items with him is challenged by the Minister of Health, who believes the magician to be a charlatan. Bonus features include an interview with the director regarding the film and various essays.

This mesmerizing debut by the great Swedish director Jan Troell (The Emigrants, The New Land) is an epic bildungsroman and a multilayered representation of early twentieth-century Sweden. Based on a series of semi-autobiographical novels by Nobel Prize winner Eyvind Johnson, the film follows a working-class boy's development, from naive teenager to intellectually curious young adult, from logger to movie projectionist to politically engaged man of...