New Film Transports Viewers to an Isolated Icelandic Township, Via a ‘Profound and Playful Masterwork’

After having watched Elfar Adalsteins’s “Summerlight… and Then Comes the Night,” I surfed over to Amazon to check the page count of the Jón Kalman Stefánsson book on which the film is based. With its many characters and generational intersections, I imagined it to be an opus on the scale of Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” or Dickens’s “Bleak House.” Instead, the novel comes in at 246 pages. This doesn’t seem plausible, given the encompassing nature of Mr. Adalsteins’s picture.Understanding how a “profound and playful masterwork from one of Iceland’s most beloved authors” fulfills its literary ambitions will have to wait until the book arrives via the U.S. Postal Service. In the meantime, Mr. Adalsteins’s cinematic variation bodes well for Mr. Stefánsson. “Summerlight” follows the intrigues that play out among the citizens of an isolated Icelandic township. That the film overstays its welcome and varies in tone shouldn’t necessarily be a red flag for moviegoers who enjoy their diversions on the droll side.The unnamed city in which events take place — the production notes list it as “Icelandic West fjords” — can’t hold more than 500 citizens. The place is an architectural eyesore, the environs being dominated by bland, shed-like buildings. The surrounding landscape is, in marked contrast, exalting and expansive, mountainous and clear-skyed. Mr. Adalstein pulls back the camera on a regular basis to remind us not only of nature’s majesty, but of the humbling character of its scale and independence. Cinematographer David Williamsson proves vital in this regard.Who is the narrator of “Summerlight”? A woman, from the sound of it, with all the patience in the world. She’s bemused as well: “Life here is pretty good, although we don’t always feel great,” she says with a slight grain in her voice. We’re informed that a unique feature of this village is that it has neither a graveyard nor a church, “which creates the illusion that no one ever dies here.” When our omniscient guide states that “there is nothing remarkable about us,” she only reaffirms that there is something remarkable about everyone.Anna Maria Pitt in ‘Summerlight… and Then Comes The Night.’ Via Juno FilmsWhich isn’t to suggest that “Summerlight” is altogether a feel-good entertainment. Most of its players lead lives of, if not quiet desperation, then with a nagging sense that there are promises that haven’t yet been fulfilled. Take Guðmundur (Sveinn Olafur Gunnarsson), the CEO of a successful knitting factory, a man of considerable managerial skill and a pillar of the community. He’s bothered by recurring dreams that have him speaking Latin in his sleep. Guðmundur consults a doctor — not about his health, but about language, specifically the words “nihil tu igitur … vidis.”Up the road and ’round yonder lives Kjartan (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson), a dairy farmer of some girth with a loving wife, Ásdís (Sara Dögg Ásgeirsdóttir), and two waif-like daughters. The local constabulary Hannes (Jóhann Sigurðarson) is a widower with a son who has precious little motivation, porcelain-like coloring, and artistic leanings, Jonas (Siggi Ingvarsson). Elsewhere we meet a banker, a doctor, a construction worker, a housekeeper with dreams of becoming a restaurateur, and, briefly, an inveterate jogger, Kristin (María Dögg Nelson). The latter instigates a moment of erotic hilarity that is not soon forgotten.“Summerlight” is a ragbag of shaggy dog stories that ambles along to sometimes dramatic, typically gentle, and ultimately touching comic purposes. Mr. Adalsteins ties up the proceedings with an unnecessarily sentimental flourish. Why he felt the need to do so is a mystery — an abiding humanism already suffuses the proceedings.I do have what might be an impolite question for casting agent Steingrímur Rúnar Guðmundsson: Why are the women in this film invariably gorgeous and the men notably rough hewn? Not a complaint, mind you, I’m just curious about a filmmaker’s prerogative or, perhaps, the state of things in Iceland.

New Film Transports Viewers to an Isolated Icelandic Township, Via a ‘Profound and Playful Masterwork’

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