Århus in the late 50s: Elin is a mystery to her classmates. When she tells Helge off one evening, he starts a campaign against her ... Tree of Knowledge (Kundskabens Træ) is an experiment in real time: Malmros shot his film over the course of two years so that the real development of his actors, their maturation, could become part of the narrative. And even though Tree of Knowledge focuses on Elin, Helge and Niels-Ole, it is about more than just the three of them - an entire state of human development is made visible and tangible here.
In the history of film, there are few works that report so precisely on what it means to be a young teenager in search of one's place in society as a whole. In other words: what responsibility means, even if you cannot assess the consequences of your own (mis)deeds. Malmros once said that it was only long after filming that he learned from the young woman on whom Elin's character is based that she is not only Jewish, but that she had visited West Germany for the first time that very summer when she became a victim of the class agitation and learned about the extent of the Shoah - and yet you seem to see all of this in her performance. If you look at things closely enough with the necessary humility, you can see the hidden.
