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Summerland (2010 film)
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Wikipedia article
'Summerland' is an 80-minute 2010 Icelandic film, written and directed by Grmur Hkonarson, released by Blueeyes Productions/Sgn ehf.
The film is set in Kpavogur, a suburb of Reykjavk strongly associated with urban legends about elves.Valdimar Tr. Hafstein, 'The Elves' Point of View: Cultural Identity in Contemporary Icelandic Elf-Tradition', 'Fabula: Zeitschrift fr Erzhlsforschung/Journal of Folklore Studies/Revue d'Etudes sur le Conte Populaire', 41 (2000), 87-104 (pp. 9193). The film takes its name from the place where spirits are said by one of the protagonists to go after death, a term attested more generally in Icelandic spiritualism.lafur lafsson, 'Sumarlandi (vorhugleiing)', 'Kirkjuriti', 7 (1941), 264-68; Gumundur Kristinsson, 'Sumarlandi: framlinir lsa andlti snu og endurfundum framlfinu', 2nd edn (Selfoss: rnestgfan, 2013).
Synopsis
The main character of the film is skar skarsson (played by Kjartan Gujnsson). skar's wife Lra (lafa Hrnn Jnsdttir) is a professional medium and, in the film's account, is aware of her past lives, able to see and talk to ghosts and to at least perceive the reality of elves. She is self-possessed, benevolent and it is implied that her business working as a medium in the local community, in which skar is portrayed merely as an assistant, is a successful one. Meanwhile, skar does not believe in elves and does not seem altogether convinced about ghosts. He has taken out a loan secured against the family home to create a tawdry tourist-trap called Ghost House in the basement, but the business is not going well. skar is portrayed as anxious, and uncomfortable in his own efforts to take on the role of a successful wheeler-dealer. He is unable to admit the family's impending bankruptcy to Lra, who finds out about it from the spirit of a dead person; vi hefum aldrei tt a fara t ennan tristabissness (we should never have gone into this tourist business), she comments.
Lra and skar have two children: the teenager sds (Hallfrur Tryggvadttir), who tends to share her father's pragmatism and scepticism and later proves oblivious to the presence of ghosts, and the young boy Flki (Nkkvi Helgason), who becomes best friends with a boy called rndur (Alexander Valur Wiium Brynjlfsson) who turns out to live in the elf-stone in the family's garden; Flki later also proves able to see and talk to ghosts.
Faced with a forced sale of the house, skar agrees without telling Lra to the unexpected offer of an ostentatiously camp, gay German art-collector called Wolfgang Muller (Wolfgang Mller), who is enchanted by Icelanders credulity about elves, to buy the elf-stone in skar's garden for 50,000, clearing skar's debts and enabling him to buy an expensive flat-screen television. However, rndur disappears and Lra falls into a coma; it later emerges that the vengeful elves have moved to a nearby elf-stone called Grsteinn, taking Lra's spirit with them.
Meanwhile, the municipal authorities of Kpavogur are planning to sell Grsteinn in order to facilitate a road-widening project, despite mysterious technical problems and Lra's protestations. Recognising the reality of elves, skar and his children join protests at the building of the road; the leader of the protest makes a speech declaring
:: v erum hr saman komin til a sna samstu me lfunum! eir byggu etta land undan okkur og vi eigum a sna eim viringu. essi steinn er hjarta Kpavogs. Vi sttum okkur ekki ... vi a hann s gerur a sluvru!
:: We have come together here to show our solidarity with the elves! They inhabited this land before us and we have to show them respect. This stone is the heart of Kpavogur. We wont accept ... it being made into a commodity to be sold!
skar lies down in front of a bulldozer whose brakes, implicitly through the intervention of the elves, fail, killing skar, whereupon Lra awakes from her coma (somewhat disappointed to find that she has not arrived in Summerland). At skar's funeral, the priest declares
:: essi hrilegi atburur eftir a lifa lengi me slensku jinni. Og vi urfum a draga lrdm af honum. Vi urfum a viurkenna a fyrir sjlfum okkur a vi bum ekki ein essu landi. Og vi urfum a koma fram vi nttruna af viringu og krleik, en ekki me skammtma grasjnarmi a leiarljsi. Vi erum hr samankomin dag til ess a kveja hugsjna- og barttumanninn, skar skarsson. skar fylgdi sannfringu sinni allt til enda og hvikai aldrei. Hann varai vi mean arir gu.
:: This terrible event must live long in the memory of the Icelandic people. And we have to learn from it. We have to recognise that we do not live alone in this land. And we have to treat the natural world with love and respectnot with short-term gain as our only goal. We have come here today to pay our respects to the idealist and activist skar skarsson. skar was true to his ideals to the end and never wavered. He spoke up when others remained silent.
The film ends with skar's ghost returning to his family to continue a happy family life there and to haunt his own ghost-house, while sis takes over the Ghost House business, which appears now to be a success.
A sub-plot in the film is sds's relationship with Sverrir orsteinsson (Snorri Engilbertsson), chairman of the atheist organisation Andtr (Disbelief), whose views are portrayed as extremist.
References
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