Songs of Earth (2023) Movie Script
SONGS OF EARTH
OUR FIRST LOVE WAS NATURE
PROLOGUE
Ever since I was a child,
I longed to walk in your footsteps,
behind you on the trail.
"Dad, can you tell me a fairytale?"
You would answer,
"We can go for a walk."
"Look around," you said.
"Don't walk so fast,
that you forget to look."
I've come home to join you
on another journey,
because I want to understand you better.
"We'll need a year," you said.
"Then you'll understand."
OLDEDALEN, WESTERN NORWAY
O Nordfjord,
Fair and rugged home of mine,
You remained with me
Through every land and time.
I see your ledges, peaks, summits,
And all your snow-covered bridges,
The forest-clad hillocks
And grassy green ridges.
No, I'll never forget
T his glittering fjord of mine,
Which shot through the mountains
With a silvery shine.
How grand! How quietly
its waters lap against its sands.
And joins the rushing rivers
From valleys and mountainous lands.
And the yard at home I see so clearly,
The cottage and garden
and all we hold dearly,
It plays in my soul, When far out I roam,
And soon, before long,
My thoughts carry me home.
I remember my father's advice As I left,
And the tears of my mother,
Pining bereft,
They gave me the best
Of all that they knew...
I can't do it... It's too hard.
Your parents are your foundation.
They flash before my eyes,
all our good times together.
I feel the same.
I love you so much, and I want to thank
you for always being there for me.
Even though it's been 30 years
since I left, I still call this home.
I feel the time rushing by.
I can't imagine losing the two of you.
When we pass, you shouldn't...
I mean, you're allowed to mourn,
but you should remember the good times.
That makes everything easier.
Don't bury yourself in grief, because...
generations follow one another.
It's inevitable,
completely natural.
It happens to everyone.
Just remember the happy
moments you shared with us.
That will make life so much easier.
JOSTEDALSBREEN GLACIER
"The fair evening sun smiles..."
Mother often said that
as the sun set behind the mountains.
"The fair evening sun smiles..."
The final rays of sunlight
gild the mountaintops.
When I was born, my feet
pointed in the wrong direction.
The doctor put fresh casts on them
weekly until I was two years old.
Then they took me to Oslo for surgery.
I came home on my second birthday.
But this is just what I' was told,
I don't remember a thing about it.
I never noticed anything
wrong with my feet.
They haven't stopped walking since.
I never stand still. Ever!
They say I'm 84 years old,
but who knows?
I was born in that house down there.
It's my childhood home.
Our family has lived in Oldedalen
for a very long time,
from one generation to the next.
The first written record of the farm
dates to 1603.
I remember my father telling me
that my grandfather,
his father Anders, planted that spruce.
It must have been before 1900,
because he died in 1906.
It was called the "Pasture Spruce."
My father's brother proposed to my
mother's sister under that tree,
and she said yes.
You hamlet I'm beholden to
In beautiful Nordfjord, so fair,
You mountains embracing Olden,
Our earthly home is there,
When fjord and water lie at rest,
A tranquil realm reflected.
Deep within our hearts and souls,
The world we love projected.
SUMMER
I know of a land Far away in the North,
With shimmering sand
Between mountains and fjords,
There I long to be a guest,
There my heart is fastened,
With the finest, the finest band.
O! I remember! I remember,
I remember so well this land.
She was slender as a lily, as they say.
He was just what I expected.
Far up north...
That's where my loved ones are found.
I want to go there,
When I wander from here,
To the loveliest place all around.
I can hear my father's voice
He's always with me.
My father sang a lot...
Losing him was devastating.
It happened so fast.
When we raised the lid of his coffin
and lifted the cloth covering his face,
it was snowing and raining.
The weather was terrible.
We stood there, and I said: "Look!"
A ray of sunlight lit up his face.
I will never forget that.
If you don't walk to fast and look around,
you get the feeling that,
we are very small in a very big world.
You might say that my grandfather
was quite devout.
He founded a religious assembly in
Oldeskaret with someone from Stardalen.
It lasted until about 1945.
Around the time they were engaged,
or even a bit earlier,
my grandfather lost
a finger in an accident,
he wrote a beautiful letter
to his bride-to-be,
asking if she still wanted him
despite his handicap,
now that he had lost a finger.
My father was an incredibly kind person.
He was the rock of our family.
The thing about my father was that he lost
his father when he was only nine.
He had to take responsibility
for his younger siblings.
My grandmother was left
with five children and no husband.
That was no joke on a farm,
especially in those days.
My father was eleven years old when
he got the deeds to the farm.
Jrgen's father Elling once told me,
while we sat looking at the mountains...
You're the first person I ever told.
He said, "I'm glad
Jrgen ended up with you."
I said, "Thanks, Elling.
Why do you say that?"
"I notice the joy in your eyes,
when you see each other,"
"even if you were only
apart for a moment."
Elling said that to me.
When you reach the top of a mountain,
and see a little flower
poking up between the rocks,
that flower's shade will be unique.
That flower struggled to stay alive.
Those flowers have
an especially beautiful tint.
You never forget it.
I inherited that from my mother.
She was also passionate about flowers.
A day like this leaves a memory
that you'll never forget.
This is a view you rarely get to see.
It is rare to reach peaks like this,
and experience the beauty of Nature
as we can only imagine.
We've been so lucky with
the weather today too.
This is one of those hikes
you plan to go on, but never do,
but then, all of a sudden, it happens.
And then...
This day, and life itself,
are suddenly worth so much more,
when you experience a day like this...
and Nature provides the setting for it.
We found some texts
that my great-grandfather
wrote after the big landslide
in Lodalen in 1905.
"It's like my head starts swimming
just thinking about it."
"I arrived at my brother-in-law's house,"
"but where was everyone,
who used to greet me."
LODALEN
"with their warm welcome?"
"Where were they, those good friends?
Yes, where were they now?"
When parts of Ramnefjellet Mountain
collapsed,
my great-grandmother Mari Nesdal lost
her brother and his entire family.
18 members of her family were killed
by the landslide and waves that followed.
Ramnefjellet Mountain
collapsed again in 1936.
My father took part in the search,
along with many others.
He found a dead little girl
caught in a rack for drying hay.
What left the greatest impression on me
was hearing of entire families wiped out,
and the survivors left with nothing.
Shattered homes are not as serious
as entire families being swept away.
Most of them were never found.
That leaves you
with terribly sad thoughts.
Losing all your loved ones
in a single night
must be a horrible experience.
"Salve P. Nesdal."
"Peder S. Nesdal."
"Oline M. Nesdal."
"Mari A. Nesdal."
"Johan A. Nesdal."
"Unnamed infant."
"Sivert Johan P. Nesdal."
"Brite Ingeborg Kamilla P. Nesdal."
"Johanne Samueline P. Nesdal."
"Unnamed infant."
"Anders S. Nesdal."
"Abraham J. Nesdal."
"Anne L. Nesdal."
"Johannes A. Nesdal."
"Lars A. Nesdal."
"Martin A. Nesdal."
"Dagfinn A. Nesdal."
"Ingeborg O. Bdal."
"Vilhelm E. Bdal."
"Peder K. Nesdal."
"Mons Kristian O. Nesdal."
"Katrine Torine B. Nesdal."
"Olav M. Nesdal."
"Agnes M. Nesdal."
"Bjarne M. Nesdal."
"Solveig M. Nesdal."
AUTUMN
Having inner peace and tranquility...
If you're happy, the people
around might feel happy too.
The most important thing for me
is being happy together,
just sitting down and contemplating life:
The good parts and the bad.
Can I do something
to make it even better?
We know what we mean to each other.
It makes life so much happier.
- He's my boy.
- You can't call an old man your boy.
Sure I can. I'll keep calling you that
as long as I can still speak,
just so you know.
- You're so romantic.
- When it suits me.
She is the best I have,
no matter what happens.
The glacier has come and gone.
In the 1950s, it was very small,
but still a little bigger than now.
Then it grew, so that in the 1990s,
it filled that entire lake.
It's such a shame that
it keeps receding now.
We say that the glacier calves,
when those big sheets of ice fall off it.
I'm amazed by the stories
Nature can tell.
She is nine years younger than me.
She's nimble on her feet,
so I have to walk every day
to keep up with her until the very end.
- You found a rock?
- I'm bringing it home.
Can you see the "snake" there,
in the mountain? - Yes.
- The waterfalls are overflowing tonight.
- Yes...
That's rare.
I've never seen them like this before.
The waterfall dropping from the glacier
has probably never been this big.
Yes, I've never seen it like this before.
It's like mother said:
Life is good as long
as there are two of us.
That's true.
I've been thinking that I should go first.
That's what I've been thinking.
The very idea of losing Jrgen
is unbearable.
What are your thoughts on that?
I haven't really thought about it much.
Life has to end eventually, for both of us.
It's not up to us, who goes first.
We'll just have to cope,
when the time comes.
- There's not much else we can do.
- There really isn't.
The rock of the family
is sitting over there.
We're content with our lot.
- You are!
- Yes.
The outside may be fading, but
we're still healthy on the inside.
WINTER
In 1946 I had appendicitis.
The water had frozen over,
and a storm shattered the ice.
I fell ill on a Tuesday evening.
I couldn't keep any food down after that.
I threw up everything I ate.
I was kept in bed until Saturday.
Then they realized how serious
it was and called the doctor.
The doctor said they needed to
take me to a hospital immediately,
but that was no easy feat.
The weather was terrible.
It was raining and sleeting.
Five or six men had to carry me
across all of Sandvika.
It was probably 100 meters wide.
Sandvika is the largest snowdrift
near Oldevatnet.
It can be almost 300 meters wide
at its worst.
I was small and light
and not that hard to carry, but...
We left home around 1 pm Saturday
and arrived in Nordfjordeid at 10 pm.
I had surgery at 1 am on Sunday.
Unfortunately, my father
was wearing a woollen shirt
that came down to his thighs.
It got really wet, and he had to
wear it in the hospital all night.
He didn't have any spare clothing.
A week later, we had to fetch
the doctor for him. He caught bronchitis.
After that, he never fully recovered.
He was often in good health,
but he had to be very careful,
because he kept coming down
with bronchitis.
Still, my father lived to be 86 years old.
There were many instances,
when lives here were at stake.
We lost many people here.
In 1850 or '60, an avalanche
destroyed the neighboring farm.
Seven or eight lives were lost.
So Oldedalen hasn't always
been a safe place.
My father told me that the dead
were moved to the hay barn
here at our farm.
One of the people from there
was a farmhand here.
He was the sole survivor
from his entire family.
Oldedalen was always a unique community.
They had to struggle together.
It was one of the first
villages in Nordfjord
to have phonelines installed
for all the residents.
My aunt worked
at the telephone exchange.
Every Christmas Eve
and New Year's Eve
she would connect
all the phones in Oldedalen.
Someone would play the fiddle
and someone else sang carols.
After that, everyone would
all talk over each other
and wish each other a Merry Christmas.
They did it again on New Year's Eve,
wishing each other a Happy New Year.
My father grew up without his father,
so maybe he kept his connection
to his father through the spruce tree
that my grandfather planted
high up the mountain.
As the spruce grew taller, maybe
his thoughts turned more to his father,
because we talked about
that spruce tree often.
The spruce tree stands and looking
down at our home,
where the next generations were raised.
So maybe he...
He was religious,
so maybe he felt God in that,
all the way from the spruce tree
down to our home in Oldedalen.
Mhm...
So your grandpa will always be around
since the spruce is there.
Yes.
And you're a part of it all.
EPILOGUE
No storm can bring this down,
not with these roots.
This should be far enough.
I think this might be a good spot.
There's enough moisture here too.
Trees need that,
or they'll die before the roots set.
They gave me the best
Of all that they knew.
God help and strengthen them
through and through.
God bless Nordfjord from glacier to sea.
And thank You for the fair home
that You gave to me.
Good fortune to every
man and woman bring,
So that joy fills the home
of every Nordfjording.
OUR FIRST LOVE WAS NATURE
LET'S NOT FORGET OUR FIRST LOVE
TO MY FATHER AND MOTHER
OUR FIRST LOVE WAS NATURE
PROLOGUE
Ever since I was a child,
I longed to walk in your footsteps,
behind you on the trail.
"Dad, can you tell me a fairytale?"
You would answer,
"We can go for a walk."
"Look around," you said.
"Don't walk so fast,
that you forget to look."
I've come home to join you
on another journey,
because I want to understand you better.
"We'll need a year," you said.
"Then you'll understand."
OLDEDALEN, WESTERN NORWAY
O Nordfjord,
Fair and rugged home of mine,
You remained with me
Through every land and time.
I see your ledges, peaks, summits,
And all your snow-covered bridges,
The forest-clad hillocks
And grassy green ridges.
No, I'll never forget
T his glittering fjord of mine,
Which shot through the mountains
With a silvery shine.
How grand! How quietly
its waters lap against its sands.
And joins the rushing rivers
From valleys and mountainous lands.
And the yard at home I see so clearly,
The cottage and garden
and all we hold dearly,
It plays in my soul, When far out I roam,
And soon, before long,
My thoughts carry me home.
I remember my father's advice As I left,
And the tears of my mother,
Pining bereft,
They gave me the best
Of all that they knew...
I can't do it... It's too hard.
Your parents are your foundation.
They flash before my eyes,
all our good times together.
I feel the same.
I love you so much, and I want to thank
you for always being there for me.
Even though it's been 30 years
since I left, I still call this home.
I feel the time rushing by.
I can't imagine losing the two of you.
When we pass, you shouldn't...
I mean, you're allowed to mourn,
but you should remember the good times.
That makes everything easier.
Don't bury yourself in grief, because...
generations follow one another.
It's inevitable,
completely natural.
It happens to everyone.
Just remember the happy
moments you shared with us.
That will make life so much easier.
JOSTEDALSBREEN GLACIER
"The fair evening sun smiles..."
Mother often said that
as the sun set behind the mountains.
"The fair evening sun smiles..."
The final rays of sunlight
gild the mountaintops.
When I was born, my feet
pointed in the wrong direction.
The doctor put fresh casts on them
weekly until I was two years old.
Then they took me to Oslo for surgery.
I came home on my second birthday.
But this is just what I' was told,
I don't remember a thing about it.
I never noticed anything
wrong with my feet.
They haven't stopped walking since.
I never stand still. Ever!
They say I'm 84 years old,
but who knows?
I was born in that house down there.
It's my childhood home.
Our family has lived in Oldedalen
for a very long time,
from one generation to the next.
The first written record of the farm
dates to 1603.
I remember my father telling me
that my grandfather,
his father Anders, planted that spruce.
It must have been before 1900,
because he died in 1906.
It was called the "Pasture Spruce."
My father's brother proposed to my
mother's sister under that tree,
and she said yes.
You hamlet I'm beholden to
In beautiful Nordfjord, so fair,
You mountains embracing Olden,
Our earthly home is there,
When fjord and water lie at rest,
A tranquil realm reflected.
Deep within our hearts and souls,
The world we love projected.
SUMMER
I know of a land Far away in the North,
With shimmering sand
Between mountains and fjords,
There I long to be a guest,
There my heart is fastened,
With the finest, the finest band.
O! I remember! I remember,
I remember so well this land.
She was slender as a lily, as they say.
He was just what I expected.
Far up north...
That's where my loved ones are found.
I want to go there,
When I wander from here,
To the loveliest place all around.
I can hear my father's voice
He's always with me.
My father sang a lot...
Losing him was devastating.
It happened so fast.
When we raised the lid of his coffin
and lifted the cloth covering his face,
it was snowing and raining.
The weather was terrible.
We stood there, and I said: "Look!"
A ray of sunlight lit up his face.
I will never forget that.
If you don't walk to fast and look around,
you get the feeling that,
we are very small in a very big world.
You might say that my grandfather
was quite devout.
He founded a religious assembly in
Oldeskaret with someone from Stardalen.
It lasted until about 1945.
Around the time they were engaged,
or even a bit earlier,
my grandfather lost
a finger in an accident,
he wrote a beautiful letter
to his bride-to-be,
asking if she still wanted him
despite his handicap,
now that he had lost a finger.
My father was an incredibly kind person.
He was the rock of our family.
The thing about my father was that he lost
his father when he was only nine.
He had to take responsibility
for his younger siblings.
My grandmother was left
with five children and no husband.
That was no joke on a farm,
especially in those days.
My father was eleven years old when
he got the deeds to the farm.
Jrgen's father Elling once told me,
while we sat looking at the mountains...
You're the first person I ever told.
He said, "I'm glad
Jrgen ended up with you."
I said, "Thanks, Elling.
Why do you say that?"
"I notice the joy in your eyes,
when you see each other,"
"even if you were only
apart for a moment."
Elling said that to me.
When you reach the top of a mountain,
and see a little flower
poking up between the rocks,
that flower's shade will be unique.
That flower struggled to stay alive.
Those flowers have
an especially beautiful tint.
You never forget it.
I inherited that from my mother.
She was also passionate about flowers.
A day like this leaves a memory
that you'll never forget.
This is a view you rarely get to see.
It is rare to reach peaks like this,
and experience the beauty of Nature
as we can only imagine.
We've been so lucky with
the weather today too.
This is one of those hikes
you plan to go on, but never do,
but then, all of a sudden, it happens.
And then...
This day, and life itself,
are suddenly worth so much more,
when you experience a day like this...
and Nature provides the setting for it.
We found some texts
that my great-grandfather
wrote after the big landslide
in Lodalen in 1905.
"It's like my head starts swimming
just thinking about it."
"I arrived at my brother-in-law's house,"
"but where was everyone,
who used to greet me."
LODALEN
"with their warm welcome?"
"Where were they, those good friends?
Yes, where were they now?"
When parts of Ramnefjellet Mountain
collapsed,
my great-grandmother Mari Nesdal lost
her brother and his entire family.
18 members of her family were killed
by the landslide and waves that followed.
Ramnefjellet Mountain
collapsed again in 1936.
My father took part in the search,
along with many others.
He found a dead little girl
caught in a rack for drying hay.
What left the greatest impression on me
was hearing of entire families wiped out,
and the survivors left with nothing.
Shattered homes are not as serious
as entire families being swept away.
Most of them were never found.
That leaves you
with terribly sad thoughts.
Losing all your loved ones
in a single night
must be a horrible experience.
"Salve P. Nesdal."
"Peder S. Nesdal."
"Oline M. Nesdal."
"Mari A. Nesdal."
"Johan A. Nesdal."
"Unnamed infant."
"Sivert Johan P. Nesdal."
"Brite Ingeborg Kamilla P. Nesdal."
"Johanne Samueline P. Nesdal."
"Unnamed infant."
"Anders S. Nesdal."
"Abraham J. Nesdal."
"Anne L. Nesdal."
"Johannes A. Nesdal."
"Lars A. Nesdal."
"Martin A. Nesdal."
"Dagfinn A. Nesdal."
"Ingeborg O. Bdal."
"Vilhelm E. Bdal."
"Peder K. Nesdal."
"Mons Kristian O. Nesdal."
"Katrine Torine B. Nesdal."
"Olav M. Nesdal."
"Agnes M. Nesdal."
"Bjarne M. Nesdal."
"Solveig M. Nesdal."
AUTUMN
Having inner peace and tranquility...
If you're happy, the people
around might feel happy too.
The most important thing for me
is being happy together,
just sitting down and contemplating life:
The good parts and the bad.
Can I do something
to make it even better?
We know what we mean to each other.
It makes life so much happier.
- He's my boy.
- You can't call an old man your boy.
Sure I can. I'll keep calling you that
as long as I can still speak,
just so you know.
- You're so romantic.
- When it suits me.
She is the best I have,
no matter what happens.
The glacier has come and gone.
In the 1950s, it was very small,
but still a little bigger than now.
Then it grew, so that in the 1990s,
it filled that entire lake.
It's such a shame that
it keeps receding now.
We say that the glacier calves,
when those big sheets of ice fall off it.
I'm amazed by the stories
Nature can tell.
She is nine years younger than me.
She's nimble on her feet,
so I have to walk every day
to keep up with her until the very end.
- You found a rock?
- I'm bringing it home.
Can you see the "snake" there,
in the mountain? - Yes.
- The waterfalls are overflowing tonight.
- Yes...
That's rare.
I've never seen them like this before.
The waterfall dropping from the glacier
has probably never been this big.
Yes, I've never seen it like this before.
It's like mother said:
Life is good as long
as there are two of us.
That's true.
I've been thinking that I should go first.
That's what I've been thinking.
The very idea of losing Jrgen
is unbearable.
What are your thoughts on that?
I haven't really thought about it much.
Life has to end eventually, for both of us.
It's not up to us, who goes first.
We'll just have to cope,
when the time comes.
- There's not much else we can do.
- There really isn't.
The rock of the family
is sitting over there.
We're content with our lot.
- You are!
- Yes.
The outside may be fading, but
we're still healthy on the inside.
WINTER
In 1946 I had appendicitis.
The water had frozen over,
and a storm shattered the ice.
I fell ill on a Tuesday evening.
I couldn't keep any food down after that.
I threw up everything I ate.
I was kept in bed until Saturday.
Then they realized how serious
it was and called the doctor.
The doctor said they needed to
take me to a hospital immediately,
but that was no easy feat.
The weather was terrible.
It was raining and sleeting.
Five or six men had to carry me
across all of Sandvika.
It was probably 100 meters wide.
Sandvika is the largest snowdrift
near Oldevatnet.
It can be almost 300 meters wide
at its worst.
I was small and light
and not that hard to carry, but...
We left home around 1 pm Saturday
and arrived in Nordfjordeid at 10 pm.
I had surgery at 1 am on Sunday.
Unfortunately, my father
was wearing a woollen shirt
that came down to his thighs.
It got really wet, and he had to
wear it in the hospital all night.
He didn't have any spare clothing.
A week later, we had to fetch
the doctor for him. He caught bronchitis.
After that, he never fully recovered.
He was often in good health,
but he had to be very careful,
because he kept coming down
with bronchitis.
Still, my father lived to be 86 years old.
There were many instances,
when lives here were at stake.
We lost many people here.
In 1850 or '60, an avalanche
destroyed the neighboring farm.
Seven or eight lives were lost.
So Oldedalen hasn't always
been a safe place.
My father told me that the dead
were moved to the hay barn
here at our farm.
One of the people from there
was a farmhand here.
He was the sole survivor
from his entire family.
Oldedalen was always a unique community.
They had to struggle together.
It was one of the first
villages in Nordfjord
to have phonelines installed
for all the residents.
My aunt worked
at the telephone exchange.
Every Christmas Eve
and New Year's Eve
she would connect
all the phones in Oldedalen.
Someone would play the fiddle
and someone else sang carols.
After that, everyone would
all talk over each other
and wish each other a Merry Christmas.
They did it again on New Year's Eve,
wishing each other a Happy New Year.
My father grew up without his father,
so maybe he kept his connection
to his father through the spruce tree
that my grandfather planted
high up the mountain.
As the spruce grew taller, maybe
his thoughts turned more to his father,
because we talked about
that spruce tree often.
The spruce tree stands and looking
down at our home,
where the next generations were raised.
So maybe he...
He was religious,
so maybe he felt God in that,
all the way from the spruce tree
down to our home in Oldedalen.
Mhm...
So your grandpa will always be around
since the spruce is there.
Yes.
And you're a part of it all.
EPILOGUE
No storm can bring this down,
not with these roots.
This should be far enough.
I think this might be a good spot.
There's enough moisture here too.
Trees need that,
or they'll die before the roots set.
They gave me the best
Of all that they knew.
God help and strengthen them
through and through.
God bless Nordfjord from glacier to sea.
And thank You for the fair home
that You gave to me.
Good fortune to every
man and woman bring,
So that joy fills the home
of every Nordfjording.
OUR FIRST LOVE WAS NATURE
LET'S NOT FORGET OUR FIRST LOVE
TO MY FATHER AND MOTHER