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Under the Tree
****
Dir: Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurosson
Starring: Steinþór Steinþórsson, Edda Björgvinsdóttir, Sigurður Sigurjónsson
(Iceland/France, 15, 1hr 29mins)
A neighbour’s feud escalates inexorably in this gripping Icelandic drama with plenty to say in its brief running time. A backyard tree belonging to middle aged-parents Balvin and Inga (Sigurour Sigurjonsson and Edda Bjorgvinsdottir) is casting shade on their neighbour’s garden. Konrad and Eybjorg (porsteinn Bachmann and Selma Bjornsdottir) are the said neighbours trying for a baby and with a beloved Alsatian, Askur.
They are spiky towards each other, but the bitterness is rooted in something tragic. Balvin and Inga have lost a son to suicide and their remaining son Atli, (Steinpor Steinporsson) is discovered by his wife masturbating to a tape of a former lover. With their marriage in trouble, Atli fears that he will not see his daughter properly again.
Matters deteriorate as Atli moves home; his parents cannot communicate; his mother is infused with bitterness whilst his affable father hides amidst mournful choir practice. Cats go missing, suspicions grow, chainsaws are wielded, madness spirals believably, leading to an all too avoidable tragedy and an inevitably bloody climax.
Brilliantly handled by co-writer and director Sigurosson, this is at times very funny, filled with the trademark Icelandic bleak humour, but also deeply moving.
A building meeting with amassed neighbours, ostensibly to talk about drainage options is cringingly funny but a birthday meal for a missing son is heartbreaking. None of the men can properly communicate and when the possibility of reconciliation or a new start happens between Atli and his estranged wife and daughter it is cruelly taken away.
The tree looms large in the backyard but so do the manifold problems endured by every character in this richly-layered film. All are given very human foibles that become magnified by chance, leading to a grand guignol finale that matters as you care about what happens to all involved. Often uncomfortable, always gripping, it is well worth basking in this tree’s shade.
Opens August 10