Rams Review
By David Kempler
The Iceland Rams
Apparently I am becoming a huge fan of Icelandic cinema. Previously, I have seen two Icelandic films that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. A couple of years ago I saw "Gnarr", a fun-filled documentary about a standup comedian in Reykjavik who, for comedy's sake, ran for mayor. Unbelievably, the gag turned into his actually becoming the mayor. At last year's festival, "Virgin Mountain", about a middle-aged overweight male virgin, was in my opinion, the best of the festival.
"Rams" looks at a slice of rural life in Iceland and it's a very fine and understated tale about two estranged brothers who are sheep farmers. Even though they are next door neighbors, they have not spoken a word to each other in over 40 years. They live in a remote farming valley and the big event of the year is the judging of which farmer has the best ram.
We first meet Gummi (Sigurður Sigurjónsson) as he prepares his prize ram for the big day. He treats the ram like people treat their champion breeds of dog in America, trying to ensure that he looks his best for the judges. Sadly, for Gummi, his ram takes second place. Making matters worse is that his brother Kiddi's (Theodór Júlíusson) ram is declared the winner.
Afterwards, everyone heads off to the pub for a celebration of the day. Gummi attends the party, but he is in no mood to feign happiness and cuts out early. Outside the celebration, Gummi looks over his brother's prize ram and notices what he thinks might be a problem. The championship ram may have the early-warning signs of scrapie, a fatal disease that attacks the sheep's nervous system.
Gummi is faced with a tough decision about whether to bring his suspicions to light because if he decides to go public, he will face a firestorm from his brother and the community. That's because the authorities might decide to slaughter all of the rams in the valley in hopes of staving off an epidemic that could spread outside of their valley. If Gummi takes a wait-and-see stance, he risks all of the rams becoming infected, anyway. His decision will greatly impact his neighbors and friends, and especially his brother.
Writer-director Grímur Hákonarson performs very well at both of his jobs, managing to draw excellent performances from the two brothers, and by using the somewhat bleak landscapes to complement the action. The history of the brother's relationship is revealed and it helps explain their actions in the present. By injecting humor into this otherwise humorless situation, he makes us feel for both brothers, and maybe two brothers need not always butt heads like their rams might.
