Peasant Psalm

Peasant Psalm

Peasant Psalm

Share

Peasant Psalm

1989

1h 40m

5.5(8 votes)

Drama

History

Overview

The movie follows the turbulent life of Wortel, a deeply devout yet flawed Flemish farmer at the turn of the 20th century. Wortel has an intense bond with his land, but his life is defined by a relentless series of tragic hardships.Throughout his journey, Wortel faces the loss of multiple children, the suicide of his son, and the heartbreaking deaths of his wives, Fien and Frisine. Despite these devastating misfortunes, he is constantly urged by the local village priest to accept this suffering as part of God's grand plan. Mixing heavy melodrama with moments of dark, bittersweet humor, the film portrays Wortel’s fierce survival instinct, human weaknesses, and ultimate search for solace through his faith and hard labor.

Links & Resources

Social & External

Production Companies

Belgische Radio en Televisie

Cast & Crew

12 members

Acting

Jef Burm

Pastoor

No Image

Acting

Christel Domen

Frisine

Christel Domen

Acting

Matteo Simoni

Pasgeboren baby

Matteo Simoni

Acting

Ronny Waterschoot

Wortel

No Image

Acting

Magda Lesage

Fien

No Image

Acting

Sabine De Volder

Amelieke

No Image

Acting

Erik Goossens

Fons

No Image

Production

Jos van Gorp

Commissaris

No Image

Acting

Gerda Marchand

Weduwe

Gerda Marchand

Acting

Jacky Morel

Ossekop

No Image

Acting

Ugo Prinsen

Franelle

No Image

Acting

Karen van Parijs

Amelie

Karen van Parijs

Similar Movies

The Bridges of Madison County

The Bridges of Madison County

Photographer Robert Kincaid wanders into the life of housewife Francesca Johnson for four days in the 1960s.

Silent Light

Silent Light

Johan and his family are Mennonites from the north of Mexico. Against the law of God and Man, Johan falls in love with another woman.

Golden Door

Golden Door

The story is set at the beginning of the 20th century in Sicily. Salvatore, a very poor farmer, and a widower, decides to emigrate to the US with all his family, including his old mother. Before they embark, they meet Lucy. She is supposed to be a British lady and wants to come back to the States. Lucy, or Luce as Salvatore calls her, for unknown reasons wants to marry someone before to arrive to Ellis Island in New York. Salvatore accepts the proposal. Once they arrive in Ellis Island they spend the quarantine period trying to pass the examinations to be admitted to the States. Tests are not so simple for poor farmers coming from Sicily. Their destiny is in the hands of the custom officers.

Seven Samurai

Seven Samurai

A samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers with food.

Viva Zapata!

Viva Zapata!

The story of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, who led a rebellion against the corrupt, oppressive dictatorship of president Porfirio Díaz in the early 20th century.

Barren Lives

Barren Lives

In vivid images, the documentary-like story of a drover and his family in the northern badlands of Brazil during the drought. A family in the search of new hope and destiny.

Antonia's Line

Antonia's Line

After World War II, Antonia and her daughter, Danielle, go back to their Dutch hometown, where Antonia's late mother has bestowed a small farm upon her. There, Antonia settles down and joins a tightly-knit but unusual community. Those around her include quirky friend Crooked Finger, would-be suitor Bas and, eventually for Antonia, a granddaughter and great-granddaughter who help create a strong family of empowered women.

The Inheritors

The Inheritors

In a small farming valley in Austria in the beginning of the 20th century a tyrannical farmer is found dead, and all the farmhands are relieved to be free of their tyrant. But the farmer was childless, so suddenly they all inherit the farm together. Now conflicts begin, as nobody is the boss and nobody has to obey.

Sommersby

Sommersby

Set in the South just after the US Civil War, Laurel Sommersby is just managing to work the farm without her husband, believed killed in battle. By all accounts, Jack Sommersby was not a pleasant man, thus when he suddenly returns, Laurel has mixed emotions. It appears that Jack has changed a great deal, leading some people to believe that this is not actually Jack but an imposter. Laurel herself is unsure, but willing to take the man into her home, and perhaps later into her heart.

Mother India

Mother India

A poverty-stricken woman raises her sons through many trials and tribulations. But no matter the struggles, always sticks to her own moral code.

Anno Domini 1573

Anno Domini 1573

Europe in second half of 16th century was very rough place to live. Peasants of Slovenia and Croatia had even rougher times because of the constant threat of Turk raids and being taxed to death in order to provide defence against the Turks. But, the worst things were arrogant local feudal lords led by Franjo Tahi who were oppresing the common folk. All that led to the great peasant revolt of 1573. The movie is made for the 400th anniversary of the event.

Die Scheinheiligen

Die Scheinheiligen

The starting point is the small (and real) town of Daxenbrunn, which has the misfortune of being located right on the highway to Salzburg. But Mayor Matthias and his friend and district administrator Dr. Seigis see the seemingly unfavorable geographical location as an opportunity to fill the empty coffers -- "Hendl, mehr sog I ned". A highway grill is supposed to redevelop the area, but in addition to the building permit, the land is also needed, and this is defended to the death by the old and stubborn farmer's wife Magdalena (great: Maria Singer) with weapons (!). Events come thick and fast when, almost simultaneously and independently of each other, art carver Johannes and asylum seeker Theophile turn up in the sleepy village and turn the local order upside down with their unflinching attitude.

Milk

Milk

A high school graduate, Yusuf could not pass the university entrance exam. Writing poetry is his greatest passion and some of his poems are being printed in various obscure literary journals. But neither these poems, nor the rapidly falling price of the milk they sell, are being of any benefit to Yusuf and Zehra's lives. When Yusuf finds out about Zehra's secret affair with the town's stationmaster he gets disconcerted. Will he find the way to cope with his anxiety for the unknown future, the rapid change that he is going through and the pain of taking a step into adulthood and leaving his youth behind

Autumn Milk

Autumn Milk

With the death of her mother, eight-year-old Anna ends her childhood: From now on, she has to look after the nine-member family. Deprivation-rich years, which also find no end when Anna marries: Her husband Albert must be a soldier in the Second World War, and the pregnant Anna has to work hard in the farm and care sick relatives. Lonely and exposed to the harassment of the tyrannical mother-in-law, she waits for Albert, with no certainty that he will ever return.

Empire of the Sun

Empire of the Sun

Jamie Graham, a privileged English boy, is living in Shanghai when the Japanese invade and force all foreigners into prison camps. Jamie is captured with an American sailor, who looks out for him while they are in the camp together. Even though he is separated from his parents and in a hostile environment, Jamie maintains his dignity and youthful spirit, providing a beacon of hope for the others held captive with him.

You Are So Beautiful

You Are So Beautiful

Aymé Pigrenet, a recently widowed farmer, is eager to find a new wife to help him run his farm. Desperate, he seeks the aid of a local matchmaker who suggest that he go to Romania to find a new wife. There he meets Elena.

Two Women

Two Women

A young widow flees from Rome during WWII and takes her lonely twelve-year-old-daughter to her rural hometown but the horrors of war soon catch up with them.

The Astronaut Farmer

The Astronaut Farmer

Texan Charles Farmer left the Air Force as a young man to save the family ranch when his dad died. Like most American ranchers, he owes his bank. Unlike most, he's an astrophysicist with a rocket in his barn - one he's built and wants to take into space. It's his dream. The FBI puts him under surveillance when he tries to buy rocket fuel, and the FAA stalls him when he files a flight plan – but Charles is undeterred.

The Tree of Wooden Clogs

The Tree of Wooden Clogs

On a turn-of-the-20th-century northern Italian farm, a group of sharecroppers eke out a threadbare existence. A priest advises Batisti and his wife Batistina that their young son Minec should be formally educated, so they sacrifice his help in the fields and send him to school. When Minec's wooden shoe breaks one day, Batisti--in an act of desperation--puts the family's future at risk to replace the clog.

Abyss

Abyss

Nagy István, the formerly poor peasant boy returns to his native village as a teacher. His conviction is that the abyss between rich and poor can be diminished by good will. The rich Böröcz Horváth Klári returns his love, and also Böröcz Horváth is willing to help the poorest family, the Bakos. Bakos Jóska, who was sent to serve the tough Böröcz Horváth as a payment, dies of an infected wound and the people in the village hold the teacher liable as well. Nagy István realises, that the abyss cannot be ceased, what is more, it is impassable. He breaks up with his fiancée and stands by the side of the poor.

Recommended Movies

Origin

Origin

While investigating the global phenomenon of caste and its dark influence on society, a journalist faces unfathomable personal loss and uncovers the beauty of human resilience.

TalhotBlond

TalhotBlond

Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.

Starving in Suburbia

Starving in Suburbia

When seventeen-year-old Hannah stumbles upon a website about Thinspiration--an online community devoted to anorexia as a life choice--she becomes an obsessive follower of the site founder, ButterflyAna. By the time Hannah's family realizes what is happening and get Hannah the help she needs, the disease has fully taken hold and Hannah is refusing to eat. Will this family be able to exorcise the demon of anorexia from their lives?

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

A story set in 19th century China and centered on the lifelong friendship between two girls who develop their own secret code as a way to contend with the rigid cultural norms imposed on women.

Munich - The Edge of War

Munich - The Edge of War

At the tense 1938 Munich Conference, former friends who now work for opposing governments become reluctant spies racing to expose a Nazi secret.

The River

The River

Tom and Mae Garvey are a Tennessee farming couple battling violent floods to save their land. In addition to natural disasters, the Garveys fight to stop a selfish land developer and a local corporation from foreclosing on their farm. While Mae stays at home to care for their children and tend to the crops, Tom finds work as a scab at a steel mill to preserve his family's property.

Belfast

Belfast

Buddy is a young boy on the cusp of adolescence, whose life is filled with familial love, childhood hijinks, and a blossoming romance. Yet, with his beloved hometown caught up in increasing turmoil, his family faces a momentous choice: hope the conflict will pass or leave everything they know behind for a new life.

Holy Lands

Holy Lands

When lapsed Jew and former cardiologist Harry suddenly decides to spend his retirement as a pig farmer in Nazareth, Israel, the move deeply shocks his family and his new neighbours. Back in New York, Harry’s ex-wife Monica is trying to manage the lives of their adult children, Annabelle and David, as well as her own.

Come Sunday

Come Sunday

Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.

Richard Jewell

Richard Jewell

Richard Jewell thinks quick, works fast, and saves hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives after a domestic terrorist plants several pipe bombs and they explode during a concert, only to be falsely suspected of the crime by sloppy FBI work and sensational media coverage.

Shattered Glass

Shattered Glass

Stephen Glass is a staff writer for the respected current events and policy magazine The New Republic and a freelance feature writer for publications such as Rolling Stone, Harper's and George. By the mid-90s, Glass' articles had turned him into one of the most sought-after young journalists in Washington, but a bizarre chain of events - chronicled in Buzz Bissinger's September 1998 Vanity Fair article - suddenly stopped his career in its tracks.

Knock on Any Door

Knock on Any Door

An attorney defends a hoodlum of murder, using the oppressiveness of the slums to appeal to the court.

Light of My Life

Light of My Life

Parent and child journey through the outskirts of society a decade after a pandemic has wiped out half the world's population. As a father struggles to protect his child, their bond—and the character of humanity—is tested.

Skin

Skin

Based on the true story of a black girl who was born to two white Afrikaner parents in South Africa during the apartheid era.

Priest Daens

Priest Daens

In the 1890s, Father Adolf Daens goes to Aalst, a textile town where child labor is rife, pay and working conditions are horrible, the poor have no vote, and the Catholic church backs the petite bourgeoisie in oppressing workers. He writes a few columns for the Catholic paper, and soon workers are listening and the powerful are in an uproar. He's expelled from the Catholic party, so he starts the Christian Democrats and is elected to Parliament. After Rome disciplines him, he must choose between two callings, as priest and as champion of workers. In subplots, a courageous young woman falls in love with a socialist and survives a shop foreman's rape; children die; prelates play billiards.

Fast Girls

Fast Girls

A street smart runner develops an intense rivalry with an equally ambitious wealthy young athlete.

Mary

Mary

A miraculous conception. A merciless king. A murderous pursuit. Mary's journey to give birth to Jesus unfolds in this biblical coming-of-age epic.

Eleanor the Great

Eleanor the Great

94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.

What Maisie Knew

What Maisie Knew

In New York City, a young girl is caught in the middle of her parents' bitter custody battle.

The House on Carroll Street

The House on Carroll Street

A reporter, fired after refusing to give names to a 1951 House Un-American Activities Committee, takes a part-time job as companion to an old lady. While working she overhears a noisy argument in the neighboring house, being conducted largely in German and involving her HUAC prosecutor. She begins to investigate, enlisting the help of the FBI Agent initially detailed to surveil her.