In The
Sea (Hafið), directed by Baltasar
Kormákur, Thórdur (played by Gunnar Eyjólfsson)
summons his family to a small town in Iceland for an
important announcement. He has been running a small
fishery business for the last fifty years, but the
financial situation has been going downhill. The Cod
War and resulting international treaties gave Iceland
a small quota of cod and haddock to catch each year,
so bigger companies that can fish farther from the
shore are dominating the business, and the company's
accountant may have embezzled some of the profits.
Before Thórdur makes the announcement, which
clearly has something to do with his inevitable retirement,
we become acquainted with his dysfunctional family.
Although Thórdur generously provided funds for
his son Ágúst (played by Hilmir Snaer
Gudnason) to study business administration, Ágúst
instead preferred to become a musician, albeit so far
he is an unsuccessful songwriter. He also financed
the education of his daughter Ragnheidur (played by
Gudrún S. Gísladóttir) to learn
how to be a television producer, though she is unable
to achieve much at the craft in Reykjavík. Thórdur
has spent a lifetime manipulating others and even making
nasty cracks at his offspring and their spouses. One
of those especially manipulated and berated is his
oldest son Haraldur (played by Sigurdur Skúlason),
who is managing the company and therefore is Thórdur's
scapegoat for whatever is going wrong with the financial
situation. Thórdur's only inheritable asset
is the family business, which is mortgaged to the hilt,
yet he evidently regards sale of his company to one
of the multinationals as a symbolic form of castration.
In much of the film we learn how members of the family
hate each other. Ágúst left behind an
Icelandic girlfriend María (played by Nína
Dögg Filippusdóttir) who is still passionate
for him, though he is also accompanied on his trip
from Paris by a pregnant girlfriend, Françoise
(played by Hèléne de Fougerolles), who
is also a musician. Thórdur eventually announces
that the company needs better management. But he is
unprepared when Ágúst turns down his
offer to take over management of the company. His three
offspring instead want him to sell the company so that
they will at least inherit a few crumbs before the
company slides into insolvency. When Thórdur
refuses to sell, some suggest that he should be committed
for mental reasons. But Ágúst, in a fit
of rage, comes up with a more ingenious solution. Rather
than having the film build suspense for that solution,
the film begins with the climax and then evidently
is one long flashback. Adapted from a play by Ólafur
Haukur Simonarson, the story is based on the King Lear
paradigm, with dark humor that would only be appreciated
in one city in the United States--New York. If the
director is trying to tell us something about Iceland,
the message is that there is nothing much to do on
a small island with lousy weather but get drunk, employ
foreigners to do the dirty work, have sex, engage in
temper tantrums, and contemplate that a London hotel
room is seven hours away. MH
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