 | Starring: Gunnar Eyjolfsson, Hilmir Snaer Gudnason, Helene De Fougerolles, Kristbjorg Kyeld Director: Baltasar Kormakur Format: Colour DVD-Video PAL Released: 20 Feb 2006 RRP: Average Rating:  |
The story is a bit familiar with the head of a fishing family getting old & worrying about the business he has built. Currently running it is his elder son who does not inspire confidence. In fact, he frequently goes against the old man's wishes. But it soon becomes clear that the old man has lost his judgment & is living in the past, & it is he who is detrimental to the company's bottom line.
Plot point one is the return of the favorite son with his pregnant girl friend. This is the son who should be running the company, the patriarch believes. However the son has no interest in living out his life in the fishing village & neither does his girl friend. The girl friend is the objectifying element in the story, & we are compelled to see the story from her point of view.
Also returning are the daughter & her husband. Together she & the older son conspire to wrest control of the company from the father...and then alll hell breaks loose.
Complicating matters is the fact that Kristin, the favorite son's old girl friend (and half-sibling), is still madly in love with him & won't let him go.
What makes this work is a steamy script with some laugh-out-loud moments, & a careful, atmospheric direction that shows a way of life that is familiar but distant. This is ultimately a story about the encroachment of the modern world on an Icelandic fishing village. It could be a fishing village anywhere.
See this for Baltasar Kormakur, a film maker of promise.
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