Blóðbönd - Thicker than Water

Ahhh, this is Berlin, where you can even see films in exotic foreign languages! There is a Nordic Film Club that shows a film every other week or so, and every now and then there is an Icelandic film on.

Tonight was Blóðbönd, (literally "blood bands", but the official English title is "Thicker than Water"), a film from 2006 by Árni Ásgeirsson that for some reason won some Norwegian film award and was nominated for a bunch of others.

What where the good things about the film?

1. It was short.
2. It was in Icelandic with subtitles, so after I bit I was back into understanding Icelandic, what little was actually said.
3. They had a nice house.

The film is about an eye doctor, he and his wife are shortly to be parents for the second time, when he discovers that their first son cannot be his son. Drama ensues, which involves a lot of silent, morose stairs, lots of drinking, some vague notion of sex (he "gets even" with his receptionist) and a bit of hash. A pathetic guy having his mid-life crisis while his wife awaits the birth of her second child.

My impression was a failed attempt to recreate Bergman's Cries and Whispers, giving it an Icelandic touch. Not even the usual elements of Icelandic films (beautiful landscape; pissing, preferably in the snow; elves and magic) are here, just depressing, rainy Reykjavik. I also found the lighting very confusing, it not being clear what season this was and how many days passed. It seemed to go from fall to summer back to fall.

But anyway, it was in Icelandic after all!