The Emigrants + The New Land (Blu-ray)

This monumental mid-nineteenth-century epic from Jan Troell (Here Is Your Life) charts, over the course of two films, a poor Swedish farming family’s voyage to America and their efforts to put down roots in a beautiful but forbidding new world.

Movie legends Max von Sydow (The Seventh Seal) and Liv Ullmann (Persona) give remarkably authentic performances as Karl-Oskar and Kristina, a couple who meet with one physical and emotional trial after another on their arduous journey.

The precise, minute detail with which Troell depicts the couple’s story - which is also the story of countless other people who sought better lives across the Atlantic - is a wonder to behold. Engrossing every step of the way, the duo of The Emigrants and The New Land makes for perhaps the greatest screen drama about the settling of America.

• New high-definition digital restorations of both films, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks
• New introduction by critic and Swedish-film expert John Simon
• New conversation between film scholar Peter Cowie and director Jan Troell
• New interview with actor Liv Ullmann
• To Paint with Pictures, a 2005 documentary on the making of the films, featuring archival footage as well as interviews with Troell, Ullmann, producer and co-screenwriter Bengt Forslund, and actor Eddie Axberg
• Trailers
• New English subtitle translations
• PLUS: An essay by critic Terrence Rafferty