A pair of young adults sit on a rocky coast staring at the sun as it hovers on the horizon, casting an ochre glow over the landscape. They trade dreams, jokes and promises while smoking a joint. She teases him about being horny. He vows to break up with his girlfriend, so they no longer have to hide their relationship. Later, in bed, nestling into the grooves of each other’s bodies, they will excitedly murmur their visions of tomorrow.
None of their tomorrows comes true because the boy, Diddi (Baldur Einarsson), dies. On his way out of town, an explosion engulfs a tunnel in Reykjavik in flames, indiscriminately incinerating vehicles and bodies like his own. When the girl, Una (Elin Hall), hears the news, she is enveloped by a gutting despair.
Without ever working above a whisper, Runar Runarsson’s When the Light Breaks (Ljósbrot) finds distinctive and unexpectedly...
None of their tomorrows comes true because the boy, Diddi (Baldur Einarsson), dies. On his way out of town, an explosion engulfs a tunnel in Reykjavik in flames, indiscriminately incinerating vehicles and bodies like his own. When the girl, Una (Elin Hall), hears the news, she is enveloped by a gutting despair.
Without ever working above a whisper, Runar Runarsson’s When the Light Breaks (Ljósbrot) finds distinctive and unexpectedly...
- 5/16/2024
- by Lovia Gyarkye
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
In our first encounter with Una (Elín Hall) and Diddi (Baldur Einarsson) in the long dusk of a Reykjavik spring night, they are thinking only of the future. The immediate future: will they be able to sleep overnight together without Diddi’s flatmate noticing? The near future, meaning the next couple of days, when Diddi officially breaks off his longstanding relationship with his high-school sweetheart Klara and starts a new life with Una. And the long term. A trip to Japan. A different life with a wider scope than Iceland can provide. “Should we make babies?” Diddi murmurs into Una’s ear as they lie, wrapped around each other like kittens, in his single-pillowed bed.
But when Diddi is killed in a freak fire in a road tunnel the next morning – a national disaster that claims upwards of a dozen lives – Una finds herself alone with her searing grief. Diddi...
But when Diddi is killed in a freak fire in a road tunnel the next morning – a national disaster that claims upwards of a dozen lives – Una finds herself alone with her searing grief. Diddi...
- 5/15/2024
- by Stephanie Bunbury
- Deadline Film + TV
This long, Iceland-set debut steams with suppressed emotion as two teenagers explore a dawning relationship
A remote, wildly beautiful – and wonderfully shot – Icelandic village is the setting for this soulful, indulgent story of teen angst and teen sexuality, which is a feature debut for Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson. Thor (Baldur Einarsson) and Kristján (Blær Hinriksson) are best friends whose home lives are both fracturing. Thor’s mother has been abandoned by her husband for a younger woman and she is not-so-secretly despised by Thor’s older, callous sisters. Kristján’s father is an obnoxious and homophobic bully. The boys make vague and maladroit attempts at romantic connections with girls, but the resulting quartet’s truth-or-dare adventures at same-sex kissing alert Thor and Kristján to another possibility: that they themselves are in love. It’s a long movie whose suppressed emotions hiss and steam like geysers and just occasionally there is something...
A remote, wildly beautiful – and wonderfully shot – Icelandic village is the setting for this soulful, indulgent story of teen angst and teen sexuality, which is a feature debut for Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson. Thor (Baldur Einarsson) and Kristján (Blær Hinriksson) are best friends whose home lives are both fracturing. Thor’s mother has been abandoned by her husband for a younger woman and she is not-so-secretly despised by Thor’s older, callous sisters. Kristján’s father is an obnoxious and homophobic bully. The boys make vague and maladroit attempts at romantic connections with girls, but the resulting quartet’s truth-or-dare adventures at same-sex kissing alert Thor and Kristján to another possibility: that they themselves are in love. It’s a long movie whose suppressed emotions hiss and steam like geysers and just occasionally there is something...
- 11/17/2017
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
The new film “Heartstone” follows Thor (Baldur Einarsson) and Christian (Blær Hinriksson), two pre-teen best friends who live in a small village in rural Iceland. They both have rough home lives — Thor suffers from absentee parenting and Christian has a drunk and abusive father — but the two find refuge in each other and their time spent loitering in the neighborhood, avoiding bullies, and hanging around the local diner. But when the two strike up romantic relationships with girls, it threatens to completely destroy their relationship. The film will screen at the Toronto International Film Festival next week. Watch the trailer below and check out the poster as well.
Read More: Tiff Reveals First Slate of 2016 Titles, Including ‘Magnificent Seven,’ ‘American Honey,’ ‘La La Land’ and ‘Birth of A Nation’
It is the directorial debut from Icelandic director Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson. He has previously directed the short films “Þröng sýn,” “Jeffrey & Beth,...
Read More: Tiff Reveals First Slate of 2016 Titles, Including ‘Magnificent Seven,’ ‘American Honey,’ ‘La La Land’ and ‘Birth of A Nation’
It is the directorial debut from Icelandic director Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson. He has previously directed the short films “Þröng sýn,” “Jeffrey & Beth,...
- 9/10/2016
- by Vikram Murthi
- Indiewire
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