Victoria

Johannes, the son of a poor miller, and Victoria, the daughter of a wealthy estate owner, were playmates as children. They meet again when Johannes returns home after finishing his studies, and the mercurial young woman appears to be making advances to him. Meanwhile at the manor house, the signs of financial decline are mounting. Johannes makes his bones as a young poet in the bohemian atmosphere of Christiania (Oslo), while Victoria’s father pushes her into an engagement with a wealthy heir. But when she learns that Johannes is also planning to marry, she once again makes moves to get closer to him. Soon, Johannes is torn between his two passions – Victoria and literature … Even as a young man, Thomas Mann was appreciative of Knut Hamsun’s novels "Hunger" (1891) and "Mysteries" (1894). The unhappy title heroine of the 1898 tragic love story on which this film is based provided the German writer with a model for Tony in his "Buddenbrooks". In Torun Lian’s screen version, with a cast of promising young actors, the character is strikingly modern.