This is not as good as ROYAL AFFAIR by the same director, also with the superb Mads Mikkelsen who makes any film (The Hunt) or TV series (Hannibal) watchable!
This is from a novel and I suppose it shows. Many authors now are keen (overly so perhaps) to include ethnic characters and show women being strong & independent, and this ticks those boxes. The Roma girl is great however and reveals the superstitions of country people all over Europe then.
It also has the biggest pantomime villain I have seen on screen since Alan Rickman in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. I mean really he could play the baddie in panto all Christmas long on the basis of his behaviour here! JUST this side of a cartoon character, but it's close!
It is fascinating as a story, set in 1755, based on truth apparently. The heath does not look like the heath I grew up near which was all gorse and broom and hawthorn trees, sometimes birch. The soil was sandy from an ancient shallow tropical sea, hence no farming interest. This is more heather moorland as in Scotland.
It is somewhat slow as a film, but intelligent.
4 stars
Pedestrian film-making with a static camera robs the film of any interest. What remains is a series of talkie tableaux with lots of close-ups of Mads Mikkelsen being his usual inexpressive self. One for the undiscerning arthouse crowd only.