In 1984, tragedy struck Iceland’s Westman Islands, an area already experienced with disaster. Eleven years earlier, the archipelago had succumbed to the Eldfell volcanic eruption, sending its residents scrambling for the safety of the mainland. The children that saw the sky light up with lava soon returned, maturing into adult fishermen in the icy climes. Their next obstacle would come not from above but below, the treacherous rocks of the surrounding waters posing a persistent threat for deep sea trawlers.
Gulli (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Aurar) can’t quite shake the youthful memory of his ash-covered home town, yet the haunting images might just be his saviour. When a routine fishing expedition ends in shipwreck, only he remains afloat in the freezing North Atlantic, his friends and colleagues lost to the elements. Overweight and alone, he swims for the shore, escaping into his mind as a distraction. His journey to safety is intertwined with his recollection of the exploding sky those many years ago, as is the path to normality that follows.
The Deep (Djúpið) is a film of two distinct halves – first charting Gulli’s harrowing ordeal at sea, then chronicling the life that waits upon his return – but it is the brutal but beautiful former that it makes its mark. Recalling the best in the survival subset, including 127 Hours in its championing of human tenacity and Touching the Void in its adherence to realism, the feature soars with suspense as its ship sinks; reminiscent of the underwater intensity of The Abyss, as well as the striking cinematography (but not the subpar story) of Sanctum, it elicits every possible moment of pressure out of the protagonist’s watery struggle.
Alas, the events that come next may be faithful to the film’s real-life origins, but their handling eschews sentiment for surveillance. Even as director and co-writer Baltasar Kormákur (Contraband) employs painstaking precision in recreating period detail and footage to exceptional effect, he remains at a distance from Gulli, the primary point of interest. Permeating bleakness matches the mournful demeanour of a man coping with survival against the odds, yet the feature is more concerned with the mechanics than the mood. Continued splashes of volcano-laden flashbacks add interest, but can’t shake the clinical atmosphere.
Kormákur’s return to Icelandic filmmaking after successive American projects may be mixed in its outcomes, the aesthetic ambition surpassing the uneven narrative execution; however one constant remains in the imbalance: the excellent Ólafsson. His expression of endurance, albeit overly restrained in the film’s latter section, is understated but at all times immersive. The film may have been better served had it mirrored this trait, rather than steadfastly remaining adrift from emotion in its pursuit of observation.
Rating: 3 stars out of 5
The Deep (Djúpið)
Director: Baltasar Kormákur
Iceland, 2012, 95 mins
Revelation Perth International Film Festival
www.revelationfilmfest.org
4 – 14 July
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