Who directed Arn: The Knight Templar?

Arn: The Knight Templar (2007) was directed by Peter Flinth and runs 2 hours 19 minutes.

Arn: The Knight Templar (2007) Plot Summary

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What Is Arn: The Knight Templar About?

The premise of Arn: The Knight Templar in 327 words, with nothing given away. The full story follows below.

In the frostbitten landscape of 12th-century Scandinavia, young Arn Magnusson grows up under the shadow of one of the realm’s most powerful dynasties. Rather than learning the ways of lords and politics, his early years are spent within the quiet stone walls of a Cistercian monastery, where monks tend to his spiritual education and a former warrior guides his training in the arts of archery, swordsmanship, and horsemanship. This unusual upbringing shapes Arn into a figure caught between two worlds — the contemplative calm of monastic devotion and the fierce discipline of a soldier trained for battle.

When Arn eventually leaves the monastery and returns to his family, his life takes an unexpected turn as he becomes entangled in the fierce rivalries of powerful noble houses vying for the crown. Amid the unrest, he falls deeply in love with Cecilia Algotsdotter, a romance that blossoms in defiance of the rigid expectations placed upon them. Their bond, however, exists in a society where personal desire clashes with political ambition, religious authority, and the demands of warring factions. Soon, circumstances beyond their control force Arn and Cecilia apart, condemning them to a separation that will test the limits of faith, loyalty, and devotion.

Driven by a quest for redemption, Arn is sent across the sea to the Holy Land, where he takes up the mantle of a Knight Templar. Far from the icy fjords of his homeland, he finds himself immersed in the brutal theater of the Crusades, a conflict whose echoes ripple all the way back to the woman he left in Sweden. The film paints a portrait of an age defined by faith and violence, where honor is measured by both sword and prayer. Across vast distances and through the haze of an unending war, Arn must navigate his duty as a warrior of God while carrying the memory of a love that refuses to fade — a love waiting for him somewhere in the frozen north.

Full plot

What Happens in Arn: The Knight Templar?

The complete story of Arn: The Knight Templar, from the first scene to the last, in 386 words (about 2 minutes). Spoilers throughout.

Spoilers ahead

Arn Magnusson is a son of the powerful Folkung dynasty in the mid-12th century. He grows up in a monastery belonging to the Cistercians and is trained there in archery, swordsmanship and horsemanship by a former Knight Templar, the brother Guilbert. Arn is also discovered to be ambidextrous. One day, while wandering the woods, he encounters three men trying to force a young girl into marriage. When the girl begs Arn for help, two of the men attack him and he kills them in self-defense. Although the monks tell Arn he did nothing wrong, they question Guilbert training him in being a warrior. Guilbert replies that Arn is not meant to be a monk but is destined to be a soldier of God.

When Arn leaves the monastery and returns to his family, he is soon pulled into the struggle between powerful families fighting for the crown of Västra Götaland. He helps his friend Knut Eriksson to kill the old king Karl Sverkersson. This leads to war between the two factions. Arn and his fiancée Cecilia Algotsdotter are excommunicated for premarital relations and falsely accused of having relations with Cecilia’s sister (in reality a plot to hurt Knut) and forced to undertake twenty years of penance, Cecilia in a convent and Arn as a Knight Templar in the Holy Land to fight against the Saracens. Cecilia gives birth to Arn’s son but the son is taken away from her and she hears only of his survival, and name of Magnus, through another woman who is also named Cecilia, the future queen of Sweden, Cecilia Blanka.

While pursuing a band of thieves, Arn comes across the enemy of all Christendom, Saladin, and saves his life. Saladin thanks Arn by warning him away from Jerusalem because he is leading a vast army towards the city. As Saladin marches upon Jerusalem, Arn is given the order to intercept the Saracens before they reach the city, and he and his men successfully ambush Saladin’s army in a mountain pass (the ambush taking the place of the historical Battle of Montgisard figuring in the novel). The movie ends with Arn gaining a letter discharging him from his service in the Holy Land from the Templar Grandmaster Arnold of Torroja and Cecilia giving praise to God on hearing news of Arn’s survival.

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