It is one of the ten films listed in Denmark's cultural canon by the Danish Ministry of Culture.
Director Henning Carlsen was very fond of Hamsun's work and brought to the screen another one of his novels almost thirty years later ("Pan", 1995).
In the grocery where Pontus buys a candle and walks away with 4.75, the door bell (intentionally or not) sounds like Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Perhaps foreshadowing that he's for the first time about to do something immoral.
An adaptation from Nobel Prize winner Knut Hamsun's 'Sult'.
The film was selected as the Danish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 39th Academy Awards.