Woman At War (Kona fer í stríð)
Directed by Benedikt Erlingsson
Iceland/France/Ukraine | 2018 | Fiction | 100 min | Icelandic w/English subtitles
Film Source: Magnolia
Sponsor: Todd Lockwood
* Opening Night film * New England Premiere *
Halla (Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir), a choir director leading a seemingly quiet existence in an upscale Reykjavik neighborhood, is secretly the “Mountain Woman,” an ecological crusader determined to sabotage the aluminum smelting industry in Iceland. But when a long-forgotten adoption application is accepted, Halla is torn between her greater environmental mission and her maternal instincts for a child from war-torn Ukraine. Writer-director Benedikt Erlingsson (whose feature debut Of Horses and Men was an audience favorite at VTIFF 2014) combines ironic humor and clever plot twists with bravura action sequences in which Halla, armed with just a bow and arrow, knocks out the local power grid. With unpretentious insight, the film also draws a crucial link between climate change and the global migrant crisis. Woman at War is a movie of the moment that seems destined to stand the test of time. ~LB
