Woman at War

seen on 20 May 2019

Benedikt Erlingsson directs Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir as Halla, a woman taking on international industrial giants as an eco-warrior in rural Iceland, while also managing a local choir and suddenly finding that a four-year-old application to adopt a child has finally been approved by the authorities. 

The tensions between her subversive actions, the beneficent life of the choir, and the impending responsibilities of parenthood are cleverly balanced so that no heavy-handed moralising upsets the general tone of serious but quirky attention to all the details of Halla's life. The scenes with the choir are delightful; the discussions with the sympathetic civil servant (also a choir member) hint at the awkward conflicts of loyalty swirling around direct action; Halla's forays into the countryside to sabotage power lines approach the excitement of a thriller or action movie but remain grounded in the realities of human frailty, exposed landscape, freezing glaciers and providential hot springs. Sveinbjörn (Jóhann Sigurðarson), a curmudgeonly farmer who may be related to Halla ('alleged cousin') provides timely support in an entirely plausible manner.



A rhythmic accompaniment of drums, accordion and sousaphone plays during Halla's rural escapades; at other times a piano can be heard, or else folk songs. When such music starts, it does not take long for the camera to pan away from Halla to reveal the instrumentalists or singers incongruously present in whatever setting they happen to be - the countryside or city streets, or the room which (luckily) contains a piano. The effect is at first almost corny but it rapidly establishes itself as a brilliant destabilising move, especially as the instrumentalists often look quizzically at Halla or at the camera when they witness something particularly provocative. 

The central focus is on Halla, of course, whose initial confidence in her actions is sapped both by the unexpected fruition of her adoption request (begun so long ago that she had virtually forgotten it) and by the manipulation by the powers that be of her 'mountain woman' manifesto when she feels impelled to publish it: to her surprise and alarm - and even shame - it is widely misinterpreted by the public, fed inflammatory interpretations by the media. In all this, Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir gives a fine, engaging and sympathetic portrait of a woman unexpectedly at war.

The film is a delight.