Stormy Weather
If there is a direct link between France and Iceland, it’s probably Stormy Weather, a movie where the Icelandic-born film director Sólveig Anspach returns to the medical environment she already explored in her debut “Haut Les Coeurs” (High Hopes). Sólveig Anspach left Iceland originally for film school in Paris, directed a couple of documentaries and fictional movies… with this one, she returns to her home city, Vestmannaeyjar, like the silent and mysterious Loa (Didda Jónsdóttir).
The film is centred on the close and ambiguous relationship between the psychotherapist Cora (Élodie Bouchez) and one of her patients, a silent and nameless reclusive woman, literally lost in a psychiatric hospital in France in the first part. When it is discovered that the patient is actually Icelandic, Cora suddenly decides to follow her, to leave the continent and visit Loa in her lost island. There begins the second part of the film, with desolated landscapes, storms, wind, alcohol, depression… Cora finding herself defenseless…
You can interpret the film the way you want, focus on the doctor-patient relations based on this fascinating interdependence or rather on the attraction/repulsion effect of Iceland… Whatever you’re interested in, you’ll be astonished by the two main actresses and by this fantastic and poetic story.
The DVD is in French and Icelandic, with English subtitles. You can buy it here.