Joe Hill

Berggren plays Joe Hillstrom, a Swedish immigrant to the US in 1902, who attempts to organise the poor through speeches and songs, and is eventually executed for murder on circumstantial evidence. Like Adalen '31, it's distractingly pretty to look at for a factually inspired film about the man who became a labour songwriter and organiser with the IWW. But when Widerberg is accused of diluting his message by making his films too sentimental and beautiful to look at, he argues that this attracts a wider audience than would go to a more rigorous political film, and that preaching to the converted is a waste of time....