The Brothers Lionheart (1977 film)

The Brothers Lionheart
Swedish DVD cover
Directed by	Olle Hellbom
Produced by	Olle Nordemar Olle Hellbom
Written by	Astrid Lindgren
Starring	Staffan Götestam Lars Söderdahl Allan Edwall Gunn Wållgren Folke Hjort Per Oscarsson
Music by	Björn Isfält Lasse Dahlberg
Distributed by	Svensk Filmindustri
Release dates	23 September 1977 (1977-09-23)
Running time	102 minutes
Country	Sweden
Language	Swedish

The Brothers Lionheart (Swedish: Bröderna Lejonhjärta) is a 1977 Swedish fantasy film directed by Olle Hellbom and based on the book with the same name, written by Astrid Lindgren. It won Sweden's Guldbagge Award for Best Director in 1978.^[1]

Selected cast

The film was shot in Sweden, Denmark and Iceland. Filming locations included Stockholm and Skåne County in Sweden, Århus in Jutland, and Þingvellir in Iceland.^[2]

In Sweden, the film grossed SEK 8,963,000 at the box office.^[3] Its screenings were attended by 553,000 people.^[3]

Although the film mostly stays true to the book some notable differences can be seen.

In the novel Hubert is described having long, curly red hair and a big, bristly beard, while actor Tommy Johnson had short, normal red hair and a moustache.
In the novel Jonatan rescues one of Tengil's soldiers. He is later killed in the battle.
In the book when Karl tries to find Jonatan one night, he stays in a cave where he suddenly gets surrounded by angry wolves but is quickly saved by Hubert, this is omitted in the film.
In the book Jossi tells Veder and Kader about Karl after getting the "Katla mark" on his chest. In the film when he arrives, he tells them before getting labeled with the mark.
Veder and Kader's fate is not shown. In the book they are killed by Orvar and Sofia.
In the novel the "Katla mark" is a dragonhead. It was a flame in the film.
Mattias is killed with a spear before the battle starts after one of Tengil's men sees him release a white dove carrying a message to Orvar.
Karm, the lindworm is omitted completely. Karm is described in the novel as Katla's enemy and that he has been around since the dawn of time awaiting the moment he will get to kill Katla. As he is restricted to water and Katla to land this has been impossible until Jonathan pushes a rock onto Katla making her fall into the Karmafalls. Both Katla and Karm proceed to destroy each other.
The ending is softened a bit and does not explicitly show the brothers committing suicide.

The film was well received by Swedish critics.^[4] Often interpreting the film in contemporary terms, they compared Staffan Götestam's portrayal of Jonatan to Che Guevara,^[4] and Georg Årlin's portrayal of Tengil to Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Augusto Pinochet, Richard Nixon and Saddam Hussein.^[4]

Films directed by Olle Hellbom