Filhos da Natureza

I ´ve seen some of the earlier works of Fridrik and with one exception hated them all. He started by insulting the Icelandic nation by doing a horrible (and terribly long film) about one of nation's greatest writers. Then he did a documentary about Iceland and got almost all of through the windscreen of a car, driving too fast. "Rock in Reykjavik" was a pleasant documentary and really fun to watch. But this film puts him among the world's most talented directors and for a small nation, that is a lot of responsibillity. Since he did "Börn Náttúrunnar" he hasn´t done anything to speak of but it´s hard to tell whether he has passed his peak, or the best has yet to come.

"Children of Nature" is a light-hearted film that pull off an awe-inspiring saga of Thorgeir (Gísli Halldórsson), an elderly farmer and his childhood sweetheart, 79-year-old Stella (Sigridur Hagalín) who meet at a rest home. They steal a jeep and set off on an adventurous journey, back to their roots, back to where they were and are children of nature as the authorities are on the look out to bring them back to the retirement home. Glad the film didn't take the Bertrand Blier's Going Places (1974) approach in the writing. Imagine the public reaction, especially the Church!!

Traditionally, older films have a heavy feel of "over acting" to help get the point across with irritating soundtrack or forced lines to tug the heartstrings but this film was spot on is a fantastic as everything comes together in a beautiful all the way through the powerful final scene as surreal scene featuring Bruno Ganz.

The film touches on the effect of urbanization and the real life that is seized from mother and the relationship between Thorgeir & Stella is shot in an extremely beautiful way. The story, music, cinematography, direction and, I hazard to say, a near perfect performances combine to make for a compelling film. I would recommend to watch this and would make a perfect double bill along with Waking Ned Devine (1998).

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.

I´m sorry to say, but this film is one of the worst from Iceland. It has some of the most dumbest plot lines ever filmed, and everyone who has ever heard anything of Iceland knows that old people are not mistreated the way it´s portrayed in this flick. An Oscar nomination...give me a break. It would have been more believable to let Die Hard take place here than this film.

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