by Annette Basile
Worth: $10.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Björn Hlynur Haraldsson, Ísadóra Bjarkardóttir Barney, Sólveig Guðmundsdóttir, Arndís Hrönn Egilsdóttir
Intro:
… paint-by-numbers …
With its stark and dark realism, Scandinavian cinema usually offers something that Hollywood films don’t. Alas, this Icelandic drama has a paint-by-numbers plot that’s so formulaic, it could have come off the production line of a La La Land script factory.
The film centres on a cosy family – astronomer María, her electrician husband Atli and their teenage daughter Anna. They all get along swimmingly, but things change when plans for a family trip to Iceland’s north – where María is set to photograph a comet that she thinks she’s discovered – get messed up. Atli (Björn Hlynur Haraldsson) is forced to stay behind to finish a job, while Anna (Ísadóra Bjarkardóttir Barney) – an aspiring musician – has an important gig. So, María (Sólveig Guðmundsdóttir) heads off alone to the rugged highlands where mobile reception is non-existent…
You can probably already guess where this is going and how it will end. The three leads – particularly Haraldsson’s raw Atli – are excellent, with beautifully natural performances, but they seem to be reading off a script that was generated by ChatGPT.
Set in a smallish town near Iceland’s capital of Reykjavík, the film is based around three clearly defined acts – a prefab template that this tale is built upon. The first act sets things up, and you could forgive it for being slow-paced if what follows was not so predictable. By act two, seasoned viewers will have already foreseen the closing scene. The colour palette during the first two acts is quite dull – almost as dull as Anna’s indie-pop band. But the third act does bring real tension and impressive cinematography.
The Mountain is written and directed by Ásthildur Kjartansdóttir, a filmmaker in her mid-70s known for her documentaries (This Is What I Call Dance, Noi, Pam and Their Men). Despite the film’s shortcomings, Kjartansdóttir has created believable characters and deserves kudos for environmentally friendly filmmaking – The Mountain has been awarded Green Film Sustainability certification.
Kjartansdóttir does capture something about the awkwardness of human interactions under difficult conditions, but she walks on well-trodden thematic grounds – family, friendship, coming of age, raw emotion – and delivers no new insights into the human condition.
