Director Grímur Hákonarson’s droll and tragic tale of Icelandic sheep farmers encapsulates all the best things about Nordic film-making: polished storytelling, radiant humanism, great acting and immaculate cinematography that shows off the stunning landscapes (in this case, Iceland’s bleak, treeless moors) to their best advantage. Unfurling a delicate, perfectly pitched tale of curmudgeonly bachelor brothers who haven’t spoken in 40 years (a scene-stealing sheepdog passes notes between them), it modulates effortlessly between absurdity and tragedy, as an outbreak of scrapie threatens to wipe out the livestock they love. Sigurður Sigurjónsson has the more prominent part as the wily sibling who appears to comply with the authorities, while Theódór Júlíusson rages against the enforced slaughter of their herds. A documentary-maker originally, Hákonarson neither sneers at nor sentimentalises this agrarian way of life, which tries to preserve ancient bloodlines and knitwear patterns in a modern world where disease outbreaks have dire economic consequences that can reach far beyond a single valley or community. Highly recommended.
