Börn

I saw this movie at the 2007 International Film Festival of Rotterdam. The director and lead actor were present at the screening for a Q&A.

Garðar, a short-fused blond guy with a big dog makes his living by threatening people and beating them up.

Karítas is a young divorced nurse. She parents four kids. The three younger daughters seem to find their way. Her son, the oldest has no friends. He plays football with Marino, a mentally handicapped man in his thirties.

Marino has a mysterious, maybe violent past. He also works in the convenience store of his uncle. The uncle is gay, but in the closet.

This is how the main elements of this group of characters start out. Like its sibling movie Parents, Children has many small intertwined stories.

In direct comparison to Parents, this story is more grim and violent. Children focuses on people who live "on the wrong side of the tracks", whereas Parents plays in the suburbs.

The acting is superb and engaging. Even though all of the characters have an evil twist or vice of some significance, it is not hard to take their side at some point in the story.

I can recommend this to anyone who wants to experience heartfelt emotions in a realistic, gritty contemporary tale. Leaving the theater untouched is not an option. 9/10

Casting Trivia: The three main actors are part of the same theater group. As this was a low to no-budget production, each of the three main actors was asked to bring in the actors for the characters around themselves. As a result, Nína Dögg Filippusdóttir (Karítas) cast her brother for the role of her son Gudmund. Lead actor Gísli Örn Garðarsson plays both the violent blond guy and his bearded brother with the beer belly.

Screenplay Trivia: Each actor developed their own dialog and story-line together with the director.

Production Trivia: The shooting of Children and Parents took place in the same time period. The editing for each film was done separately. Because of the tremendous amount of footage, editing took 6-7 months for each film.

Editing Trivia: A big story-line surrounding the gay shop owner (Marino's uncle) had to be left out of the final movie. The director thought it did not fit well enough together with the other story-lines. He almost had enough material to make another movie..

Acting Trivia: When actor Gísli Örn Garðarsson was in his role for the violent Garðar, they would shoot scenes in a bar. He was amazed and shocked to experience how girls would be attracted to these types.

I really liked this film. "Born-children" presents three stories of children, difficult children, with a desolate and empty Reykjavik in the background. Three stories of children involved in, breathing violence, solitude, rejection, alienation. Three stories which then cross each other, to compare solitude with solitude, in a strenuous research of the individual to fight against their own loneliness and alienation which, before being physical, is internal, psychological. Excellent the choice of the black and white, which enhances the dark and empty atmospheres of the situations. Very good film, successful in picturing characters and their state and recreating atmospheres of universal alienation.

A fine movie. It's sad, it's funny, sometimes difficult to watch but always entertaining and at the end of it you can't stop thinking about the characters and their life. Go see it. Börn is one of those film that stays with you, makes you think, makes you wonder and makes you feel happy about your own life.

The acting is great, one of the best actor being the one playing Guðmundur the eleven year old son of Karitas, the main character.

Maybe one of the reasons the acting is so good, and why it fells so natural is that the film, its script and all is made by the actors themselves in a kind of workshop. It all feels so natural, the filming shot in black and white in one of Reykjavíks least appealing neighborhoods only adding to that feeling.

The music is also very good. All in all one of the best film I've seen recently.

I must confess that I am not a great fan of Icelandic cinema, and even though I had heard some talk about this movie when it came out, I never went to see it in the theatres. Well, I finally saw it. And it absolutely blew me away. It is a film that is created with pure passion and talent to fully back it up. It's a family portrait, a photo album, an obituary and suicide note of such immense depth and richness that you're swept along with every sigh and breath on the screen. But the mastery lies in the fine line it traverses between despair and hope. The film avoids being oppressive though it depicts oppression, and it celebrates humanity and companionship even when it revels in the emotions of isolation. It's a movie that embraces you, holds you tight, and may even make you a slightly better person before letting go.