Flax farmer Vermeulen and his wife Barbele are awaiting the arrival of their son Louis, a student at the agriculture school. When Louis wants to apply his acquired knowledge and proposes to sow the flax on a different land, his father disagrees. The 'eternal battle between the ancient and the modern' (Streuvels) bursts out. The fact that Louis falls in love with Schellebelle, the stable maid, reinforces the tensions between the generations. The conflict reaches its dramatic climax when Louis decides on his own to have the flax harvested. The film follows Streuvels' novel, but nevertheless chooses a happy ending.
This German adaptation by Boleslaw Barlog of Stijn Streuvels' famous novel De Vlaschaard was produced by the UFA studios and partly shot in Flanders in the middle of the Second World War (1942). The exterior scenes were shot in the surroundings of Courtrai, with Flemish figurants providing the ‘couleur locale’. The interior scenes were shot in the UFA studios in Berlin. The leading roles are interpreted by famous German actors of the time, among them the legendary Paul Wegener. Streuvels' cooperation to the film was controversial at the time and still is today, due to the fact that the film was made during the German occupation. A German filmmaker adapting a piece of Flemish rural culture in the middle of the Second World War... A curiosity...
The fascinating story of this production appears partly in the extras to this edition. The historical framework is provided by Roel Vande Winkel and Ine Van linthout in their book De Vlaschaard 1943. Een Vlaams boek in nazi-Duitsland en een Duitse film in bezet België (Uitgeverij Groeninghe, Courtrai).
CONTENT
Wenn die Sonne Wieder Schient 83 min
Interview with Roel Vande Winkel and Ine Van linthout, authors of the book (in Dutch) De Vlaschaard 1943. Een Vlaams boek in nazi-Duitsland en een Duitse film in bezet België
Interview with Marcel Gruyaert, maker of the documentary Vlas (1948) and with Jan Gruyaert, director of De Vlaschaard (1983) with fragments of both films.
Interview with eye witnesses: Sylvain Christiaens, Bert Dewildeman, Marnix Dhaluin, Trees Lammens, Anna Scherpereel, Paul Vandebuerie
Short films
Terra filmt de Vlaschaard on the set of Wenn die Sonne wieder scheint, 1942
Het lied van het linnen, documentary by Charles Dekeukeleire, 1938
News item from 28 August 1942 De Vlaschaard by Stijn Streuvels adapted to the screen by Terra
Languages: Dutch, German
Subtitles: Dutch, French
Format: 4:3
Frame: 1:33
Regio code: all regions