Tree of Knowledge

The story takes place at the end of the 50s in Aarhus, Denmark and follows a group of children from the 7th to the 9th grade. What they experience are not the grand dramas of life, but the events they do experience affect them more powerfully than at any other time in their lives. The film centres around Elin, the prettiest and most mature girl in the class. She plays on these advantages more or less unconsciously. It makes the girls jealous and the boys unsure. Therefore she becomes the scapegoat for their unresolved sexual awareness. For Elin, this being frozen out of the once happy circle becomes a tragedy, also on account of being totally misunderstood by her old-fashioned parents. The other main character is Niels-Ole, the leading boy in the class, who arouses indignation by rejecting girls in his own class in favour of the younger and prettier girl, Majbritt. At the same time, this film is a light-hearted yet serious account of the beautiful difficult years between childhood and youth, based on the director Nils Malmros’ own experiences as a schoolboy in Aarhus in the late 1950s.