TIFF17 REVIEW: Svanurinn [The Swan] [2017]

“You were so good when you were little” What once was a traditional rite of passage for Icelandic children has now become punishment. Whereas her mother probably visited her Aunt Ólöf’s (Katla M. Þorgeirsdóttir) farmland to learn responsibility and work ethic away from the allure of her ocean-side city, young Sól (Gríma Valsdóttir) makes the trek as penance for shoplifting—itself a byproduct more or less attributed to her life’s upheaval upon her parents’ separation. Gone are her friends (although she states she has few), her sisters, her mother (besides the…

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