Grief and its variations in Hlynur Palmason's Icelandic genre-jumper: A WHITE, WHITE DAY

If we don't know by this time, via its movies at least, that the Nordic island country of Iceland has a culture and character pretty damned different from all others, even those of Scandinavia, to which it most probably closely compares, then the new film, A WHITE, WHITE DAY, should bring that point home all over again. It's surprisingly quiet (especially for a movie in which a kidnapping and a likely suicide occur) and somewhat repetitive, yet days after viewing it, the film keeps coming back to mind at odd times and in odd ways. It's sneakily memorable.

As written and directed by Hylnur Palmason (shown at right; this is his second full-length feature), the film begins as we follow a car traveling down a lonely, snow-surrounded highway in a lot of fog. After the first "event," we move to a shot of a field with a house under construction in the distance, as horses graze, day changes to night and then one season becomes another.

All this (below) is both repetitive and time-consuming, and yet it holds us via its very obstinacy: We haven't even seen a human face as yet.

When we finally do, the faces belong to three generations of a family who've now lost their matriarch, leaving a grieving widower, a local policeman named Ingimundur (played by a very impressive actor, Ingvar Sigurdsson, below), as well as other family members in various states of disarray.

The character who seems for awhile in the least disarray is Ingimundur's granddaughter, Salka (below), played with amazing skill and utter honesty by newcomer Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir. This young actress is so good in so many ways that it's no surprise she's already won an acting award.

Ingimundur and Salka make quite the team; they easily put in the shade the rest of the supporting cast, all of whom are excellent, even as the support circles around these two protagonists, as satellites who job it is to help guide the pair to some kind of fruition.

The plot, which I will not much go into, involves everything from caring and betrayal to crackerbarrel therapy, soccer games, anger and revenge. What makes the movie work so very well, aside from the excellent performances and smart, less-is-more writing and direction, is that particular, maybe even peculiar, Icelandic character.

Perhaps because of its wintry locale and sparse population, citizens seem to be allowed to make mistakes -- some of these real doozies -- without the kind of constant supervision, reprimands, penalties and whatnot that so many countries (western or eastern) seem to inflict. There's a kind of trust implicit here that a person can and will arrive at his own place at his own pace. Call it built-in forgiveness, maybe? Along with the ability of citizens to take some real responsibility for themselves.

Whatever: These cultural "traits," for lack of better word, imbue this work with the kind of substance and oddball grace that many would-be-more-important movies never get near. Another fine and interesting film from Film Movement, A White, White Day will have its "virtual cinema" premiere tomorrow, Friday, April 17, in locations across the country. Click here to view venues and learn more information.

Mads Mikkelsen: on ice in Joe Penna's endurance test, ARCTIC, and prone to more cold weather and murder in Jonas Åkerlund's ugly, envelope-pushing POLAR

Mads Mikkelsen is one of TrustMovies' favorite living actors. We'll watch him in just about anything, and now, after his two current endeavors, we feel that we have. ARCTIC, the better -- if still pretty tiresome to sit through (unless you're a glutton for punishment) -- of the two films finds the actor stranded in that titular locale after a plane crash. Except for its frozen wasteland, the film has oodles in common with the earlier survival-at-sea movie, All Is Lost, which was infinitely easier to sit through because there was so much more going on and we learned more about the film's single character than we ever do here.

As directed and co-written (with Ryan Morrison, who also edited the movie) by Joe Penna (shown at right), what's mostly going on in Arctic is a lot of trekking and trudging across frozen vast white spaces, as our hero hopes to be rescued or reach some kind of civilization.

That's it, plot-wise. To even begin to describe the very few "incidents" that try to enliven that plot would be to give away the minor spoilers the film offers. Best to concentrate on Mr. Mikkelsen, below, who proves, as usual, quite watchable.

The character he plays, Overgård (we know this only from the name on the jacket the man wears), is clearly highly intelligent and resourceful -- de rigueur for this kind of film -- which of course will help him in his quest/journey. Yet the most interesting thing we note about Overgård is his his concern and caring for life -- in whatever form it takes. This is clear early on, as he catches a fish, and later come to further fruition via his treatment of one of the only two other humans we (vaguely) meet in this movie.

If you are a fan of lone survivor movies -- and not those of the horror/thriller/slasher sort -- Arctic may be quite to your taste. I found it slow going, with a finale (spoiler just ahead) that, while welcome on one level, utterly disappoints on another, via its obvious nod to the necessities of feel-good, commercial cinema. Overall, while I admired things about the film, I didn't actually enjoy it much.

From Bleecker Street and running 98 minutes, Arctic opened February 1 on the coasts and will hit South Florida tomorrow, Friday, February 22. In Miami, it will play the AMC's Sunset Place 24 and Aventura 24 and Regal's South Beach 18, in Fort Lauderdale at The Classic Gateway, in Boca Raton at the Regal Shadowood, in Boynton Beach at the Cinemark, in West Palm Beach at the AMC City Place 20 and Cobb's Downtown at the Mall 16 in Palm Beach Gardens, and in Jupiter at the Cineopolis. Wherever you may live around the USA, click here to find your nearest theater(s).

We get to see lots more of Mr. Mikkelsen in POLAR, the junky, envelope-pushing, let's-out-Tarantino-little-Quentin movie directed by Jonas Åkerlund (shown below), with a  screenplay by Jayson Rothwell, from the graphic novel by Victor Santos.

In the film, Mikkelsen plays Duncan Visla, the world's best assassin-for-hire (a profession that is not exactly "heroic," right?) who, when retirement time comes, is betrayed by his "boss" so that said boss can have what ought to have been Visla's multi-million-dollar retirement bonus.

The boss (played by an over-the-top Matt Lucas, below), by the way, is doing this to all his retirement-age assassins. Perhaps an assassins' union is in order? In any case, this nasty guy has sent out his supposedly best set of young assassins to murder the old ones. But in trying to reach their prey, these "kids" decide to murder a whole bevy of those whom they find "in between."

While watching this increasingly florid crock of shit you can't help wondering: Did the filmmakers somehow imagine that because they've dressed their kids in cutesy costumes and chosen perhaps the weirdest set of victims so far seen -- the most horrible is the character who seems to have stumbled from My 600-Pound Life into his or her (not sure which) 600-Pound Death.

This is envelope-pushing, all right, and it stinks of near complete inhumanity and sleaze. Ooooooh: Let's laugh while we watch these folk being "creatively" murdered. It's not dark, it's dreck. Ah, but there is that attempt at humanity provided by our Duncan's near-constant flashing back to a murder episode that he clearly regrets. Oh, so sad.

In the supporting cast is Vanessa Hudgens as the sweet but clearly unhappy neighbor who lives across from Duncan's hide-out home. Hudgens, above, right, with Mikkelsen, is very good (compare this performance with that of her Maureen in the recent Rent: Live on TV), and so, I suppose, are many others in the large cast. But to what avail?

Mikkelsen himself (above, further above, and torso-wise below) seen mostly in black eye-patch, is reliable as always, and in this film, unlike Arctic, we get to see much more of him -- killing, cracking-wise, fucking in the nude, and so forth. At age 53 he still looks fabulous and seems to grow more versatile, acting-wise, with each new year. He even executive produced this film (he must have been impressed by the success of his envelope-pushing Hannibal TV series). But again, to what avail?

Streaming now via Netflix, Polar runs just under two full hours. The film's finale actually proved a nice surprise (to me, at least; you might have guessed the connection) that even made good sense. But, boy, how I wished there had been a decent movie in front of that interesting ending.

Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson's fraught, Icelandic coming-of-age tale, HEARTSTONE

Think back to your own early-teen-age time and the fear you felt that most likely turned into everything from aggression to depression, loneliness and seclusion to acting out in sometimes odd ways and you'll have a good idea of the content of Icelandic filmmaker Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson in his deeply-felt and beautifully filmed HEARTSTONE. In it, the writer/director, pictured below, tells the tale of two boys on the cusp of that time when one's secondary sex characteristics are about to appear and so much begins to change -- in and to one's body.

The lead characters here are fast friends Þór and Kristján (played with utter commitment and honesty by Baldur Einarsson and Blær Hinriksson, shown below and on the poster above, left and right, respectively), who, as puberty hits, find their feelings, particularly those budding sexual ones, moving in different directions. One boy is focused on a local girl, while the other is growing ever more attached to his friend. Yes, a lot of angst ensues.

Fortunately, taking place as the film does in a small Icelandic community far from the major city of Reykjavik, the scenery is stunning and the sense of place that the filmmaker is able to capture plants us firmly in this unusual terrain.

The culture here, too, is both expected and yet exotic -- so different in some ways, similar in others, from its American counterpart that the behavior of the kids on view, along with their parents and other adult townspeople, is consistently interesting and just a little strange, too.

The girls of the town, though they may be the same age as these boys, are clearly more mature (as seems to be the case worldwide), and so our troubled-but-trying fellow's fumbled connections to his would-be girlfriend are both funny and sad,

as are those of his older sister and her best friend (above), who treat little brother in that same alternately sweet/affectionate and can't-stop-making-fun-of-him manner that older siblings so often do.

It's the other boy, however, whose plight seems so much more difficult. Gay is still something of a stigma in Iceland, particularly, as would be expected, in small towns. How the sadder of our two heroes handles this is maybe to be expected but is still difficult for the viewer to bear. How his friend handles it, too, is troubling but very believable.

What saves Heartstone from being a dirge and a mire is its magnificent locations coupled to performances from the entire cast that ring absolutely true. The parents have their own troubling issues, and the children, as usual, are still unable to process completely and certainly unable to put into sensible words and thoughts all of the angst that's going on inside them. They all blunder through, just as most of us did (and maybe still do). The ending, by the way, is brilliant, harking back to the film's beginning with a bit of perfect symbolism that adds just a dollop of necessary hope.

From Breaking Glass Pictures and running a lengthy but never boring 129 minutes, after opening theatrically in Los Angeles last week, the movie hits DVD and VOD this coming Tuesday, October 10 -- for purchase and/or rental. I'd call it a keeper.

On Blu-ray/DVD: Iceland's Foreign Language Film submission, Grímur Hákonarson's RAMS

Though lauded with critical hosannas (95% critic-positive on Rotten Tomatoes), RAMS, the supposed "deadpan comedy" that was Iceland's entry into the BFLF Oscar race, didn't make even the Academy's shortlist this past year. It's an odd film, all right, and although he realizes that comedy, especially, is a matter of taste, TrustMovies must admit that he laughed only once during the course of the entire movie -- at a scene involving a very heavy piece of farming machinery depositing its current load at the entrance to the local hospital.

The rest of the time, TM just sat there, not uninterested, but waiting for something, anything, perhaps that other shoe, to finally drop. As written and directed by Grímur Hákonarson, shown at left, what surprised me most about Rams was how obvious the film is as to where it is going and what it will expect of its audience -- all of which is very nearly assured from the opening couple of scenes. Very quickly we learn how important sheep farming is to this little country, and also that some of said sheep are sick unto death, probably via a greatly-feared infection called "scrapie." We also meet the two brothers -- old men who've not spoken in 40 years and yet farm sheep on large plots of land immediately adjacent to each other.

This is dead serious subject matter, and as written and directed by Mr. Hákonarson it is played more seriously than humorously. And not only by the two actors who plays the brothers -- Sigurður Sigurjónsson, as Gummi, and Theodór Júlíusson as Kiddi , shown above, with Kiddi on the left -- but by all the other performers who essay townspeople, farmers, veterinarians, police and so forth.

The tone here is very dry, however, as befits deadpan, but the incidents that pile up are not particularly believable and grow less so as the movie moves along (sheep illegally hidden away in the basement, bleating their hearts out and being overheard by a newcomer who is told -- and buys this -- that the sounds are being made by cats).

On the plus side are some lovely landscapes (verdant in summer and snowy in winter), perfectly valid performances, and the very idea of sheep farming and what it means to the local community -- which is brought home quite well, whether you perceive all this as comic or no.

By the finale we've gone through the entire expected scenario -- from the deadpan/barely-existing/would-be laughs to the farcical elements to the inevitable moments expected to move us. I might have been moved, but this film has such an utterly "manufactured" quality about it that I couldn't rise to the occasion. Perhaps you will; god knows, most of our critical establishment have.

From Cohen Media Group and running a mere 93 minutes, the movie makes its Blu-ray and DVDebut this coming Tuesday, June 28 -- for purchase or rental. Better than the film, I felt, were the DVD extras, in which the filmmaker give a very short interview in which he explains that he really wanted to credit all the individual sheep because they were that good (they are!).  Also included is a choice little short film that Hákonarson made back in 2007 entitled Wrestling, which features an odd Icelandic combination of wrestling plus dance moves and involves a love story between the two major wrestlers that plays out, again, in deadpan style. It's worth seeing. 

Fridrik Thór Fridriksson's MAMMA GÓGÓ, Iceland's Oscar entry, gets an L.A. airing

Am I imagining this, or are we critics and reviewers having more opportunity to view, not only the movies that finally make their way to nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, but even those that are initially submitted to represent various foreign countries in the yearly Oscar race? Seems so to me, at least. Relevant to this (and I am making an assumption here), I would guess that a country like Iceland, with its relatively small population, does not have nearly as many movies to choose from -- as does, say, Italy, France or Germany -- when selecting which film should represent it at Oscar time. Hence (another assumption), the pick by Iceland's powers-that-be of Fridrik Thór Fridriksson's MAMMA GÓGÓ as the country's official Oscar entry.

This not uninteresting film has some very moving moments along the way, as well as some funny ones (often black and bleak), dealing as it does with a down-on-his-luck movie director who has just made a film called Children of Nature (about Iceland's elderly) that is bombing at the Icelandic box-office, and for which the only hope would seem to be a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nomination. Meanwhile, the director's own mother is beginning to suffer from dementia of a particularly virulent and dangerous sort. Fridriksson, shown at left, is the man who also directed last year's fine documentary, A Mother's Courage: Talking Back to Autism, so the fellow is clearly knee-deep is the understanding of human beings facing difficult handicaps in both early- and late-life situations.

What is so odd about the filmmaker's new Mamma Gógó, however, is that the aforementioned Children of Nature, is an actual movie, made in 1991, that was indeed nominated for (but didn't win) said Oscar. In fact, in Mamma Gógó, we're at the premiere of Children of Nature in one of the film's first scenes. Following this, we're with the poor beleaguered director (played quite well by Hilmir Snær Guðnason, above, Iceland's go-to guy for roles that require a sexy young -- now actually approaching middle-age -- male, and who has scored big in films such as 101 Reykjavík and The Sea). Further, the movie appears to be taking place today (certainly within a year or two past), since events such as the Icelandic economic crisis, a possible new drug that might  help Alzheimer patients, and a very large, wide-screen TV all make appearances in the film. Yet Children of Nature is now 20 years old. What is happening with the time frame here? Is the writer/director simply goofing on us? Or not-so-subtly telling us that this is just "a movie," so anything goes?

Even more interesting is the use of popular Icelandic actress Kristbjörg Kjeld, above, in the title role. Ms Kjeld is terrific: smart and funny early on (watch her get out of a traffic violation!) and sad, dense and confused as the film (and her character's sickness) progresses. Fridriksson not only stars Kjeld as she appears today but also uses footage (below) from her debut film 79 af stöðinni (from 1962), in which she also played a character named Gógó, in what appears to be flashbacks within Mamma Gógó to indicate the young love affair with her now deceased husband. For Icelandic audiences this is probably gourmet catnip;  for foreign viewers, however, it works mostly as sentimental overlay.

Sentimentality, particularly at the finale, is what finally reduces the film to less than the sum of its often very good parts. The dialog is sometimes a little too pedestrian and the pacing standard stuff, but the 84-minute running time helps make the experience easier. There are some very moving scenes along the way (the son diapering his mother) and others that are nasty and powerful (mom's sudden outbursts against her daughters and, particularly, her daughter-in-law). But because, as this point in time, we've seen an awful lot of movies about elderly dementia, there is finally not a lot that's terribly new here. Other than the filmmaker's interestingly bizarre mash-up of time periods with older movies and performances.

Los Angeles film people will have the opportunity to see Mamma Gógó this Sunday afternoon, Jan. 9, at 12:30pm, at the Writers’ Guild Theater, 135 South Doheny Drive, Beverly Hills. I don't think, so far, that any U.S. distributor has stepped up to the plate. But that could change, depending on which films the Academy chooses for its Best Foreign Language Film shortlist, then nominees and -- finally -- winner.