Children of Nature - Eine Reise

"Children of Nature" is the first Icelandic film I have ever seen and I was pleasantly surprised. It concerns two former childhood sweethearts (Thorgeir & Stella) who meet in an old age home, escape, and return to their remote hometown.

This film is a nice antidote to most Hollywood movies: the stars are nasty old people, the pace of the film is slow, and there are elements of magical realism. It also doesn't hurt that the cinematography is excellent and shows off Iceland beautifully.

After seeing this film, I get the impression that Iceland is a weird and wonderful place and I hope to visit soon!

P.S. If you liked "Wings of Desire" you'll appreciate the cameo by the angel Damiel (Bruno Ganz).

This movie begins with Geirri leaving the family farm and moving in with his family. He's gotten to old to handle farming on his own, and his family has decided that they are more suited to life in the city. The attempt to merge into his daughter's hectic life doesn't work out and he finds himself in a nursing home, surrounded by fellow retirees - some of whom are loving the time and the freedom the home allows right alongside others who are not.

Geirri meets up with Stella, a childhood sweetheart who has decided that dying in a nursing home is something she does not want to do. So, they decide to leave together. By the dead of night they steal a car and head for the towns of their youth...

Geirri and Stella are running form the law (leaving the home without permission and, more importantly, car theft), but there is no 'Bonnie and Clyde' feeling to this story. They return to the towns they knew and remember the years together. There are spirits in their mind and spirits of the ocean who meet them along the way. You get an excellent sense of their strength, knowledge, and experience.

All in all, this movie is very touching - until the end.

I really appreciated the journey and the experiences Geirri and Stella have, but the plot twist that brings the viewer to a final scene which is (in my opinion) brutal, disturbing, and (to be frank) confusing end. Yes, Geirri running from the law, and yes, he is trying to maintain his freedom, but...the rocks and the feet...?

Confusing and jarring. There was a fascinating mystical feel to the way the movie plays itself out, and one could theorize that the ending was more symbolic than realistic. But, why throw that kind of symbolism onto the end of such a touching (and realistic) movie?

Even so, I highly recommend this movie. There's to much to be gained from the movie as a whole to allow the oddness of the ending to stop you from seeing it.

Since making Children of Nature he not made anything worthwhile, so he has passed his peak. He's made about 4-5 very bad films since nearly winning an oscar for this average but entertaining film. And he never really made anything good before this. It's a shame that he runs the Icelandic film industry single handedly.

A fantastic film. Gísli Halldórsson gives a great performance as always and really gives the movie a lot.

It is a very beautiful film where the main contrast is not on spoken word but on what the eye sees and that is what makes this movie work not only in Iceland but worldwide. There is not word spoken for the first 20 minutes of the films and by then the viewer doesn't really care if the film is in Icelandic or in English or what ever other language.

The movie clearly shows that you don't need to be 20 years old to be in love and how some people are simply children of nature

One of the best films i have seen. 10/10

I would like to say that I was very happy to know that the middle name of the director is Thor. It is pretty difficult for us, Brazilians, to deal with the Icelandic characters. This is the director's second film I've seen. The first was MammaGogó and I translated both subtitles from English into Portuguese. I know we loose a lot in translating from one language to another, guess when we have to go through two translations! So, I am taking into consideration that I lost a lot from the original idea of the director. My feeling was that he had an excellent material, a road movie with two elders, who don't't have any longer the right to leave their own lives as they wish (well, one, the other was somewhat resigned to his fate). The film could be more profound as it is a problem faced overall the world, but he chose to make it naive. I don't't blame his choice, otherwise the two nice couple wouldn't walk one meter before been stopped and probably arrested. I congratulated with the director because he was audacious enough to bring up a subject that many people rather ignore. I am not an expert in Icelandic filmography and I surely will look forward to watch "Cold Fever", mentioned by one of the reviewers, and I would like to emphasize that he used elements of Icelandic folklore in order to help those fugitives who believed in such elements. It was just a matter of tradition and culture. My guessing.