Balthasar Kormalkur's family drama begins with two disturbing images of violence tinted with green and sick yellow hues: one of a man climbing out of the wreck of his vehicle, weeping, and another young man, seen only from his back, pouring gasoline onto the floor of some building. Both follow each other almost simultaneously, as if they were happening at the same time, and intuition indicates that this is exactly what is happening. This, of course, over the plain white credits over a black background as a sad tune plays, is the beginning of THE SEA.
Somehow Iceland doesn't conjure up images of domestic violence and family dysfunction. Being so close to Ingmar Bergman's own Sweden, one gets images of slow moving stories dripping with subtext told in ways that allows for multiple interpretations. However, this is a story about a patriarch, Thordur, who has an announcement to make to his sons who all live far away from home. Agust is the youngest and the father's favorite son, and has escaped Iceland and adopted France as his country, living with his girlfriend Francoise, and who has recently quit school and spent his father's money in order to make a career out of himself in the music business. Haraldur, the older son, manages the family business while his wife Aslaug wallows in a little fashion store called Cosmopolitan and goes over the top in desperation because she wants more. The eldest sister, Ragnheidur (Rags, for short -- these names are rather complicated) is as bitter as citric acid, has a yuppie husband and teenage son.
Like all family dramas, this one has the requisite secrets, jealousies, longings, and machinations that has made the best of stories (King Lear, The Little Foxes). There is little love in this family. Too many unresolved issues run amok, and it's only time before they explode in acts of rage that threaten to destroy what little unity remains. At least Kormalkur has interspersed the movie with moments of very mordant humor, one of the funniest involving Aslaug as she goes from explosion to explosion, growling like a cat in heat, so needy for a way out it's a miracle she just doesn't brain her husband's head and escape, alone, into her future. The actress playing her looks a little like Marcia Cross from "Desperate Housewives", but Aslaug is no Bree: quite the contrary, she's a veritable shrew, out for what she believes is hers.
Much of the movie's momentum is focused on these three siblings converging in their home in Iceland, then their interaction with one another as they study each other like hawks or hyenas ready to devour the carcass, and the definite high gear the story goes into once Thordur reveals his announcement, which is not a pretty thing. From then on, it's a grim fight for filial supremacy that clearly won't end well. Like in "King Lear", the older siblings, monsters like Regan and Goneril, conspire to commit the father to a mental institution. However, it's the movie's Cordelia, the alienated Agust, who takes matters into his own hands and settles things in a way that can only be considered satisfying for all.
So without a real hero, who can we hold onto? Answer is, no one: this is a family of siblings that are out for what they believe to be theirs. That their motives are diametrically opposed is part of the issue; Agust could be seen as the purest while the older ones could be interchangeable -- Rags being the more money hungry and Haraldur being plain practical -- and its execution is pretty sharp within its transitions from scene to scene. What may work against it is that this is one of the oldest stories in the world, and one can almost guess what is going to happen next even without the subtitles, because really: how difficult is it to retain a sense of suspense in a family drama?
Somehow Iceland doesn't conjure up images of domestic violence and family dysfunction. Being so close to Ingmar Bergman's own Sweden, one gets images of slow moving stories dripping with subtext told in ways that allows for multiple interpretations. However, this is a story about a patriarch, Thordur, who has an announcement to make to his sons who all live far away from home. Agust is the youngest and the father's favorite son, and has escaped Iceland and adopted France as his country, living with his girlfriend Francoise, and who has recently quit school and spent his father's money in order to make a career out of himself in the music business. Haraldur, the older son, manages the family business while his wife Aslaug wallows in a little fashion store called Cosmopolitan and goes over the top in desperation because she wants more. The eldest sister, Ragnheidur (Rags, for short -- these names are rather complicated) is as bitter as citric acid, has a yuppie husband and teenage son.
Like all family dramas, this one has the requisite secrets, jealousies, longings, and machinations that has made the best of stories (King Lear, The Little Foxes). There is little love in this family. Too many unresolved issues run amok, and it's only time before they explode in acts of rage that threaten to destroy what little unity remains. At least Kormalkur has interspersed the movie with moments of very mordant humor, one of the funniest involving Aslaug as she goes from explosion to explosion, growling like a cat in heat, so needy for a way out it's a miracle she just doesn't brain her husband's head and escape, alone, into her future. The actress playing her looks a little like Marcia Cross from "Desperate Housewives", but Aslaug is no Bree: quite the contrary, she's a veritable shrew, out for what she believes is hers.
Much of the movie's momentum is focused on these three siblings converging in their home in Iceland, then their interaction with one another as they study each other like hawks or hyenas ready to devour the carcass, and the definite high gear the story goes into once Thordur reveals his announcement, which is not a pretty thing. From then on, it's a grim fight for filial supremacy that clearly won't end well. Like in "King Lear", the older siblings, monsters like Regan and Goneril, conspire to commit the father to a mental institution. However, it's the movie's Cordelia, the alienated Agust, who takes matters into his own hands and settles things in a way that can only be considered satisfying for all.
So without a real hero, who can we hold onto? Answer is, no one: this is a family of siblings that are out for what they believe to be theirs. That their motives are diametrically opposed is part of the issue; Agust could be seen as the purest while the older ones could be interchangeable -- Rags being the more money hungry and Haraldur being plain practical -- and its execution is pretty sharp within its transitions from scene to scene. What may work against it is that this is one of the oldest stories in the world, and one can almost guess what is going to happen next even without the subtitles, because really: how difficult is it to retain a sense of suspense in a family drama?