Brúðguminn

Sydsvenskan only gave this film two horses (out of five), so there were only four of us at the early evening showing of Baltasar Kormákur's Brúðguminn (The Bridegroom, to be released as "White Night Wedding" in English). But it was being shown in the Icelandic original with Swedish subtitles, so there was just no way I was going to miss it.

As a typical Icelandic film, nature plays the main role. This film was made on the island of Flatey, the summer I was up in the Western Fjords. And oh, what a beautiful island it is (when it's not raining)!

This seems to be an attempt by Kormákur to make a rather serious movie about love, in this case, a professor at Háskoli Íslands explaining an author's take on love to a very, very bored class (except one girl). He can't contain his humor, however, and has some extremely funny scenes woven into the piece. He gets extra points for having a woman do the obligatory pissing scene, in her wedding dress.

So I would give this at least 3 1/2 horses - an entertaining film.

Further thoughts: I think Swedes and Icelanders don't like the film, because it hits too close to home. It pokes fun at "typical" women, being interested in the arts and making "weird" things and cooking and needing their men to tell them every day how much they love them, and "typical" men who have the good jobs, even though they don't really do any of the work and who like to drink an awful lot and do crazy stuff with their mates and don't understand the women.