HAMSUN

“You are a master of words. And that gives you power.” The speaker is Vidkun Quisling, puppet prime minister of Nazi-held Norway, whose name would soon become a synonym for traitor. He directs his compliment to Knut Hamsun (Max von Sydow), Nobel Prize-winning poet, novelist, and commentator – a Norwegian national hero counted among the Third Reich's most notorious supporters due to his articles and exhortations eloquently praising Hitler. Yet the stubborn, reclusive, irascible Hamsun, an intellectual hopelessly out of his depth in fascist politics and propaganda, admits he never read “Mein Kampf” (only the reviews) and classes with Occupation officials right up to the F?hrer himself. The controversial writer's descent from patriotic symbol to international discrages to strangely ennobled survivor charts a momentous, true tale of treason, deceit and twisted justice every bit as fascinating as “The English Patient.” It's also a love story, between Hamsun and the pro-German wife whom he both loathed and could not do without. Quisling may now mean traitor, but no such simple dismissal could sum up Knut Hamsun. In German, Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish with English subtitles. – Charles Cassady