This Icelandic-set film is an odd mix of drama and dark comedy, although I am not particularly sure it does really well at either, it does do a decent job and one that is worth a look. The film opens with the situation where we have a son working for his father on their dairy farm – even though the son hates milk and all products coming from milk. His father has little patience for him, and when a pipe breaks on the main storage tank, he blames his son for doing it – leading to a confrontation which has been much time in the coming.
The resulting short from this plot is amusing and distracting, but perhaps there is a cultural barrier for me to the humor or drama? As a drama it seems to have a good base of family tension, the type which occasionally boils over and leads to things we regret, but things that we ultimately move on from. This situation is maybe heightened by the remoteness of the family from others, meaning that the world can be very small (growing up in rural Northern Ireland, I can attest to this). The ending of the film speaks to this aspect well, and I liked the low-key conclusion that it has. For the majority of the film though, I am not entirely sure what it was doing as too much time was spent with the milkman in a way that didn't seem to add much to comedy, drama, or tension. The result is that the film is engaging for what little it does, although it really could have done more.
Technically it is well made. I liked the rather cold and direct tone it had, and as ever I like the open Icelandic landscape – this is not the most dramatic example of it you'll see, but the open space and remoteness is all around, and this adds to the contained family drama we see. It is an interesting film, but one that is not wholly successful in either its slightly comedic darkness, or in its place as a family drama.
