64. Driving Mum (Á Ferð með Mömmu); movie review

 

DRIVING MUM (Á FERÐ MEÐ MÖMMU)

Cert TBA

112 mins

BBFC advice: TBA

Whenever an Icelandic movie is released in Britain, I make a special effort to see it because I know it will be quirky and immersive.

Driving Mum certainly fits the bill and much more - it is wonderfully scripted and splendidly acted, and its backdrop is different from anywhere in the world.

Set in 1980, Hilmar Oddsson's black and white road movie focuses on Jón (Leó Gunnarsson), a middle-aged man of unfulfilled potential who lives in a very remote farmhouse with his elderly mother (Kristbjörg Kjeld).

The pair make a living from knitting clothes and spend their day at work in their living room, listening to stories on cassettes.

She is an unsmiling, prickly-tongued woman who tells her son she wants to be buried in a village a long way from their home.

And then she dies.

So, he dresses her corpse in her best clothes, makes up her face with exaggerated blusher and lipstick and sticks her in the back seat of his battered Ford Cortina to take her to her final resting place.

It is a wonderfully imaginative journey with myriad surprising and often hilarious interruptions.

Hilmar Oddsson's sublime writing is at the core of Driving Mum's success as his gloriously subtle direction.

The bleakness of the volcanic ash background contrasts so beautifully with the scene of the dead mother, made up akin to a clown in the back of the car.

I love how we learn more and more about Jón's life being lost to the domineering matriarch as the journey progresses, even though he is only accompanied by the corpse and his dog.

A special treat was a conversation between him and a terminally ill tourist (Tómas Lemarquis) even though they didn't have a common language.

It is another Icelandic treat. I need to see more of the country's films. 

Reasons to watch: Beautifully different

Reasons to avoid: Low on action

Laughs: Six

Jumps: None

Vomit: None

Nudity: None

Overall rating: 8.5/10

Did you know? Only 23,000 people (less than six per cent of the population) live in rural areas. The total population is less than 400,000.

The final word. Himar Oddsson: "I'm sort of paying respect to my father who was a playwright. He wrote in the style of absurdist theatre, like Samuel Beckett and Ionescu and all those guys. So I was brought up with that kind of storytelling, that strange absurd things can be told in a very natural way." Eye For Film

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