Woman at War had a memorable preview, which is the opening scene of the film. It features a mature, lone woman, Halla, using a bow and arrow to destroy power lines against a beautiful bucolic backdrop set in Iceland. I’ve seen plenty of movies set in Iceland, but not an Icelandic movie so this movie seemed like an excellent way to start.
Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir’s performance is perfect. It is such a physically demanding role, and it was thrilling to see her outwit her pursuers by using nature like a nonviolent Rambo. Geirharðsdóttir is an action star for the artsy fartsy set. She is just as riveting in less rigorous moments such as walking in her neighborhood. Her range and ability to depict different personalities depending on the unexpected demands of the scene was a success, but I’m not sure if those demands detracted from the narrative by making the movie more predictable and closer to a sitcom.
Woman at War feels like the soul sister of Sorry to Bother You except with a much more genteel, safe temperament, entirely more concerned with its reception than the statement that it is making. It wants to be loved more than it wants to deliver its message. The soundtrack is a surreal element of the movie that took me way longer to comprehend than I should have. Visually the film depicts how the titular character’s day job deeply affects and influences her passion, nonviolent environmental terrorism.
Initially I thought that this depiction was a breaking of the fourth wall, and Halla was not privy to what the audience was seeing. I thought that there was a meta statement being made about cinema. Then I realized that she was conscious of it, and perhaps it was a representation of her inner self, but by the denouement, I realized that it was really a separate character acting as a unit, connected to only her character, but with more knowledge and an independent though similar agenda from her. Was I supposed to take that journey in deciding what this aspect of the movie represented or did the movie capriciously change the function to serve a twee, yet charming aspect of the narrative?
It is possible that many of the elements of the movie that confused me would not baffle an Icelander. I find myself in the same dilemma that I initially found myself when I started watching Yorgos Lanthimos’ films. Is this film surreal to the native audience that it was made for or is it just as charming and delightfully elucidating as the tangential moments of whimsy in a movie like 500 Days of Summer or a John Cusack film? I have no idea.
I definitely think that a lot of Woman at War gets lost in translation. Halla’s concerns are never fully explained. I don’t know what happens if she fails. I vaguely understand that she believes that industry is a threat to the environment, and it involves international business dealings with the government, but it was only after the movie was finished that I found out it was specifically the aluminum industry. Maybe I’m slow, but I need a brief moment detailing what the apocalypse is that Halla is trying to stop other than simply protecting the environment. How are they specifically going to destroy the environment?
Fun fact: it is getting remade in the United States and will star Jodie Foster. Ugh. Just let Brit Marling have the definitive best movie about this subject matter, The East. Too much of this movie is regional specific, and I don’t think that it could work. Some really amazing moments in Woman at War will probably elude foreign viewers’ comprehension. The democracy element is an essential plot point usually evoked by locations such as the square where she disseminates her message or the place where the government officials plot to counter her efforts. The movie is definitely making a statement about the insidious ways that democracy is deliberately undermined in the way that it changes hearts and minds through media. Media has an allegiance and is never neutral.
Media is also the catalyst for her call to action. The omnipresence of television screens as a window to a world of tragedy plays an important role in Woman at War. The impotence of seeing the burgeoning tragedies on your television screen spurs Halla to find a solution. So media hates and creates people like her. Because ordinary people are in a sense watching each other at all times because of technological advances, it creates pain without purpose, which Halla tries to alleviate with action, which many believe is misguided or dangerous. In contrast, in Iceland, because it is a relatively small country, people used to be closer and related to each other, which created a sense of family and responsibility for each other, which the framework of this new media and government divides and supersedes. There is one scene when a police officer actually knows someone that Halla mentions, but that potential personal connection will not help her because of his professional duty, which is spurred by the marriage between industry and government. Government exists to protect industry and private property, not public commons. The hidden in plain sight underbelly of consumption and sinister influence is how real life is consumed by the government in order to take action in the real world.
The universal paranoia of becoming a part of the surveillance state will make ACLU lovers adore Woman at War. By the end, even I got horrified by the measures that the government was taking to find Halla, and I’ve actually advocated for such measures in order to solve crimes that horrify me more so the movie succeeded in making me empathize with an argument that I never viscerally understood.
If I had known about one crucial plot point, I would have never seen Woman at War.
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I instantly get turned off whenever a bad ass woman suddenly gets saddled with a child that was never prominently featured in the preview. When movies center a woman taking action that could potentially make her unlikeable to the audience, it humanizes her by suddenly shifting the interest that attracted us to her, i.e. engaging in some activity that is usually attributed to men, to a child that she feels compelled to protect and basically ends up adopting. I absolutely despise this trope, and while I believe that Woman at War used the child as a way for Halla to enter the real world in crisis instead of watching it on television, the window of the world, and dealing in the theoretical and taking dubious, possibly ineffective action, it still left me cold. The adoption plot point is introduced fairly early in the movie, and as her demographic personal information is delivered, I instinctually thought that intentionally or not, the movie was hitting a nerve because it shared the same judgment that most people do about single, older women. If we just had a child, we would stop being so [insert whatever characteristic is usually positive when attributed to men] and focus on what really matters, being a mother. I was relieved that she didn’t suddenly get a love interest although her sister definitely thought that she did, and that possibility seemed open.
For me, the adoption storyline was a deal breaker, and it made the story painfully predictable, which made me wish that Woman at War ended earlier. I don’t think that I was the only one that felt this way because a few people could not stop checking the time on their cell phones. I even predicted The Parent Trap switch. So even though I wanted to love the film, was impressed by the performances and the visual majesty of the film, I just didn’t like it. I’m glad that I saw it on the big screen, but if I had known about that story line, I would have skipped it.
If you’re wearing a Mandela mask, is it black face?
