Djöflaeyjan

This movie is really good. At least it's better than the book although many people would disagree with me there. To enjoy this film more than some have been doing you'll have to know what situation the people are in. The movie is based on the Icelandic lives at that time. I think it's a great movie but not the best Icelandic movie i've seen.

If I would see some film that is identical to this one from another country with another culture I would not enjoy it as much. For example if there were a movie about someone in Britain and I would not know the situation the people would be in I wouldn't understand the story in the film.

I recommend to everybody who can read the book to read it before or after you see this film. In the book you can see the storyline much better and you'll know why this is a really good movie.

I go out of my way to view foreign/independent film (I know, we're a vanishing breed) and rented this video at a neighborhood store that has a pretty good foreign selection mostly on the power of having seen COLD FEVER, which I enjoyed.

While I appreciate "dark comedies" as much as the next person -- and am a huge fan of Aki Kurasmaki (so I have some familiarity of Scandinavian film sensibility) -- it was a mistake to have placed so much of the film's success around a character as thoroughly unlikable as Baddi.

While he dominates the screen with charmless, witless and appalling behavior that knows no bounds (premised on his contact with "America"), most of the other characters are used as props and are nobly antithetical, i.e., they have a conscience. But for the most part, as a whole they cannot counterbalance the effect that the Baddi character has on the film.

That is a shame because there appeared to be some good potential character driven aspects to the story that were wasted.

I saw this movie in a university class. First, I felt it was somewhat loose in storyline and editing, and it took me a while to get me into the story. but then I got accustomed with the characters and was fine after all.

The story is about a family that lives in some come-down US-barrack-shelters in the early 1950ies. It covers a couple of years of time. It's built up like a classic Icelandic saga - about a family in Iceland, with one character, Baddi that is, in the middle, and the problems Baddi causes. But that might also make the story a bit boring.

Characters are odd and funny. Cinematography is excellent. If you like Scandinavian cinema and and story lines you can't predict, this is a movie you should watch.

I have to disagree with the user that commented on the movie above me. You might think that this is my opinion as an Icelander, but this is truly my honest opinion from a motion picture point of view.

This story probably captures Icelandic viewers born from 1900 - 1950 even better than the rest, since they might remember this peculiar scenario, where the poor people of the country lived in US/UK military cabins. This story realistically describes life in those days if you had little financial capabilities and lived in Iceland, which took a big leap in that time frame in regards of technology and thinking. Actors put on quite a show, and the characters are of such variations that almost everyone can relate to some of them, whether if it's yourself or somebody you know.

I don't know why the other critic claimed that he didn't care whether the characters lived or died, but it seems to me that he wasn't really paying attention to the movie. I don't know if it's because it's mainly in Icelandic, or because of another reason (maybe not subtitled), but I recommend this movie to anyone who likes good movies that are not typical Hollywood movies.

Cheers.

This movie is a good, 'gritty' film, about a lower class family going through major cultural shock. Chances are you don't speak icelandic (I don't) but subtitled it flowed very well. It's not hollywood like, it goes a bit slower than your average film, but they use that time to develop the characters and to get you emotionally involved.