Film Forum

Sweden, 1967
Written and Directed by Bo Widerberg
Starring Pia Degermark, Thommy Berggren
WINNER Cannes Film Festival – Best Actress, 1967
Approx. 91 min.

Based on a true story, this visually sumptuous 19th-century romantic tragedy, about the ill-fated love affair between a circus tightrope walker and a married lieutenant, was an international sensation. Beneath its sun-dappled images of a pastoral country landscape, and the beauty of its Mozart piano music, lies a powerful vision of the impossibility of freedom and escape in a repressive society. As Elvira, Pia Degermark won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival, helping launch the film to great success.

Reviews

“The first time I saw ELVIRA MADIGAN when it came out in 1967 I actually didn't think it was anything special. I think it had a lot to do with the fact that Bo Widerberg at that time couldn't open his mouth without saying something disparaging about me. We had practically never met. But he wrote a book where he aggressively attacked me and I could never understand why. I actually thought he was an extremely good director, not for theatre but for film. I saw ELVIRA MADIGAN again last summer when the newly restored version was ready and I saw it was a masterpiece. It is a film that is alive at each moment.”
– Ingmar Bergman

“Exquisite is only the first word to describe this exceptional film. There are others—poetic and sensitive, compassionate and humane, poignant and eventually heartbreaking in its resolution of a universal dilemma of star-crossed lovers.”
– Bosley Crowther, The New York Times

“ELVIRA MADIGAN is indeed remarkably beautiful. Almost every frame would make a painting, and yet the film is alive and cinematic, not simply photographs of pretty pictures.”
– Roger Ebert