Sigurður Sigurjónsson

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Icelandic Film Centre wrote: The film is based on the novel by Indridi G. Thorsteinsson, which is set in a remote valley in the North of Iceland in the year 1937.The slump and sheep disease are crippling farming; young peple are streaming to the centres of urban expansion in this period of rapid economic and social change in Iceland. One farmer and his sons live in the valley alone with their debts and anxieties. The ties which bind the father to the land he has cultivated and lived upon are unbreakable.Read More »

This is the story of a spiritual and physical odyssey, comic and strange, made by a young theological student. Our hero is Umbi (an acronym for emissary of the bishop), sent by him to undertake an important investigation at Snæfell glacier. In particular he is to look into the conduct and behavior of Jón Prímus, the old pastor at Snæfell. Fantastic rumours are rife: amongst other things it is said that a corpse is lodged in the glacier! Armed with his tape recorder and notebook, Umbi embarks upon his mission. He tries to question the weird locals, a weird lot, but gets evasive answers. Slowly he is dragged into a quagmire of strange happenings and his efforts to understand only make him confused. If at the beginning he is a chiper, a mere device, by the end of the story he is inextricably involved, a committed participant in the bizarre events.Read More »

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In Rams, writer-director Grímur Hákonarson mixes drollness and pathos with commanding matter-of-factness. The narrative is so inherently poignant that Hákonarson understands it requires a dry directorial counterpoint, which he provides in the guise of initially misleading authorial distance. A documentary filmmaker making his fictional feature debut, Hákonarson structures Rams with a sense of restriction that’s similar to that of certain documentaries, as if only some gestures could be captured within this rural Icelandic setting. There’s little exposition, though one’s given what they’re needed to orient themselves, as characters are observationally shown, at length, to engage in the processes that define their lives, particularly farming, sheep competitions, and tormented drinking.Read More »