Children

I have heard that Iceland is beautiful, but Ragnar Bragason's depiction of Reykjavik is ugly and functional. Then Children isn't a beautiful film. It is could be retitled Sons and Mothers, as the relationships between sons and mothers plays a major part in the film. Its a dark, sombre, realistic, black and white film about disfunctional relationships, particularly between parents and children, and also about lying and hiding the truth. The film is structured as 3 intersecting stories which all finally come together at A & E. A hospital worker solo mother of four children she is too busy to take proper care of, meanwhile living downstairs is a schizophrenic and his lonely mother, and menacing and often beating up virtually everyone he meets is Gardar a local "enforcer" who hates being lied to and is despaired of by his mother.

Unintentionally the director make the point that if it wasn't for the language and the blonde hair you couldn't tell which western city you were in. The cityscapes and the interior shots of shops, schools, buses, cars, apartments and hospitals all look the same. We are living in a McDonalds world.

If you need to get the idea that Iceland is a beautiful place populated by nice people out of your system or if you need to see how easy it is for parent-child relationships to break down then this is the film for you.

Ian's rating: 2.5/5