Brúðguminn (White Night Wedding)

Watching Iceland cinema is always a visual pleasure and more if the film is by Baltasar Kormákur that I enjoyed in great 101 Reykjavík and good Mýrin (Jar City). This film has the same high production values as the mentioned films, with excellent cinematography of an island in the middle of nowhere and according to the plot, one of the most up-north inhabited islands in the world.

Inspired by Chekhov’s Ivanov and with script co written by Kormákur the film starts when Jón is in the rehearsal of his second wedding and in real time the film tells about the next twenty-four hours until the wedding ceremony. But time moves back-and-forth to when Jón is married to his first wife Anna and decides to give up his teaching position in Reykjavík to go back to Anna’s birthplace, the isolated island. Eventually past and present merge. The movie is supposedly a comedy, but humor is really sour and very dry, very similar to Nordic humor and totally different to let’s say, American humor. To me the story is a drama about people that try to change their lives only to find that whatever you do, you’ll end-up exactly where you started to think that you need to change your life.

Not an easy to watch movie because the dry/sour story, the pace, and the humor style, but great performances and beautiful photography (special mention to lighting) makes the film watchable. Still this is a forgettable story, even when some beautiful images could remain in your head for a while.

The film that was screened at 2008 Toronto fest won all the awards where got nominations at the 2008 Edda Awards in Iceland and definitively the Best Cinematography honor was well-deserved.

This is a film that I only recommend to those that have to watch Baltasar Kormákur oeuvre, as otherwise I tend to think that the story will not please many. I liked the movie, but I would have appreciated more the film if the story would have been more interesting for me.

Enjoy!!

Watch trailer @ Movie On Companion