Woman at War

Part of my coverage of the 54th Chicago International Film Festival.

WOMAN AT WAR   ***

Benedikt Erlingsson

2018

IDEA:  A radical environmental activist evades the Icelandic government as she prepares to adopt a young Ukrainian girl.

BLURB:  In a droll, off-kilter register hovering between the whimsical and the dryly ominous, Woman at War addresses the catastrophic course of climate change and the very real probability that there is no longer anything we can do to stop it. It’s heavy stuff for a film featuring running onscreen musical accompaniment from an oom-pah band, and although Erlingsson is sometimes tempted toward glibness by his idiosyncratic narrative conceits, the director manages to strike a consistently irreverent tone without compromising the story’s pertinent real-world implications. Certainly helping in this matter is actress Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir, who pulls double-duty as strong-willed twin sisters. Her eco-terrorist Halla, the lead of the two, is a delightfully implacable force who acts as the avatar for the film’s activist ethos. Whether discussing plans for adoption or breathlessly ducking authorities in chases across the countryside, the actress imbues the character with a steely, stubborn tenacity tied to a refusal to let Iceland, and Mother Earth, be despoiled. The central irony that she is fighting for the environment by attacking the industry of Iceland, a tiny country and one of the greenest to boot, is one of Woman at War’s darkly tacit jokes, and it is in this irony that the film resonates as both a rallying cry for intrepid activism and an acknowledgment of improbable odds. Like anyone else, Halla wants to keep the planet alive, but how much of an impact can one Icelandic woman make? The picture Erlingsson paints, complemented by an inept, technocratic, xenophobic government, is pretty grim, but Halla’s vivid journey – and that unassailable oom-pah band – suggest some kind of faint glow in the Reykjavik darkness.