Children of Nature

I´m sorry to say, but this film is one of the worst from Iceland. It has some of the most dumbest plot lines ever filmed, and everyone who has ever heard anything of Iceland knows that old people are not mistreated the way it´s portrayed in this flick. An Oscar nomination...give me a break. It would have been more believable to let Die Hard take place here than this film.

"Children of Nature" is the first Icelandic film I have ever seen and I was pleasantly surprised. It concerns two former childhood sweethearts (Thorgeir & Stella) who meet in an old age home, escape, and return to their remote hometown.

This film is a nice antidote to most Hollywood movies: the stars are nasty old people, the pace of the film is slow, and there are elements of magical realism. It also doesn't hurt that the cinematography is excellent and shows off Iceland beautifully.

After seeing this film, I get the impression that Iceland is a weird and wonderful place and I hope to visit soon!

P.S. If you liked "Wings of Desire" you'll appreciate the cameo by the angel Damiel (Bruno Ganz).

I would like to say that I was very happy to know that the middle name of the director is Thor. It is pretty difficult for us, Brazilians, to deal with the Icelandic characters. This is the director's second film I've seen. The first was MammaGogó and I translated both subtitles from English into Portuguese. I know we loose a lot in translating from one language to another, guess when we have to go through two translations! So, I am taking into consideration that I lost a lot from the original idea of the director. My feeling was that he had an excellent material, a road movie with two elders, who don't't have any longer the right to leave their own lives as they wish (well, one, the other was somewhat resigned to his fate). The film could be more profound as it is a problem faced overall the world, but he chose to make it naive. I don't't blame his choice, otherwise the two nice couple wouldn't walk one meter before been stopped and probably arrested. I congratulated with the director because he was audacious enough to bring up a subject that many people rather ignore. I am not an expert in Icelandic filmography and I surely will look forward to watch "Cold Fever", mentioned by one of the reviewers, and I would like to emphasize that he used elements of Icelandic folklore in order to help those fugitives who believed in such elements. It was just a matter of tradition and culture. My guessing.

"Children of Nature" is a light-hearted film that pull off an awe-inspiring saga of Thorgeir (Gísli Halldórsson), an elderly farmer and his childhood sweetheart, 79-year-old Stella (Sigridur Hagalín) who meet at a rest home. They steal a jeep and set off on an adventurous journey, back to their roots, back to where they were and are children of nature as the authorities are on the look out to bring them back to the retirement home. Glad the film didn't take the Bertrand Blier's Going Places (1974) approach in the writing. Imagine the public reaction, especially the Church!!

Traditionally, older films have a heavy feel of "over acting" to help get the point across with irritating soundtrack or forced lines to tug the heartstrings but this film was spot on is a fantastic as everything comes together in a beautiful all the way through the powerful final scene as surreal scene featuring Bruno Ganz.

The film touches on the effect of urbanization and the real life that is seized from mother and the relationship between Thorgeir & Stella is shot in an extremely beautiful way. The story, music, cinematography, direction and, I hazard to say, a near perfect performances combine to make for a compelling film. I would recommend to watch this and would make a perfect double bill along with Waking Ned Devine (1998).

I ´ve seen some of the earlier works of Fridrik and with one exception hated them all. He started by insulting the Icelandic nation by doing a horrible (and terribly long film) about one of nation's greatest writers. Then he did a documentary about Iceland and got almost all of through the windscreen of a car, driving too fast. "Rock in Reykjavik" was a pleasant documentary and really fun to watch. But this film puts him among the world's most talented directors and for a small nation, that is a lot of responsibillity. Since he did "Börn Náttúrunnar" he hasn´t done anything to speak of but it´s hard to tell whether he has passed his peak, or the best has yet to come.