White Night Wedding (Brúðguminn) Shines for Oscar Love

Now this is nice to see. Baltasar Kormakur's fabulous White Night Wedding has been chosen as Iceland's official entry for the best foreign language film Oscar derby for 2008. Personally, the three most interesting awards given out on Oscar Night are Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Foreign Language Film. The one that is consistently worth following up the winning film is certainly the latter of those three. And around these parts, we are big fans of Kormakur, (personally, my new favourite character actor is Ólafur Darri Ólafsson who appears in not one, but two Icelandic wedding comedies this year). It was surprising to seem him top Jar City with a wedding comedy, but top it he does. Both Todd and I fell head over heals for the charm, wit, intelligence and warmth on display in White Night Wedding. Here is hoping that Oscar likes it too.

White Night Wedding updates and modernizes Anton Chekhov's Ivanov and transplants it to Flatey, a remote island off Iceland's north shore. Jon, a literature professor, is about to marry his former student Thora. Her parents, Lalli and Sísí, are the island's most prominent family, owning its only pub, guest house and convenience store. The impending nuptials are endangered by financial disputes – a business deal between Jon and Thora's parents went sour – and by Jon's past. This is not his first marriage, and Jon's guilt over the way things ended with his first wife and his doubts about his worthiness may be the biggest stumbling blocks to the wedding. As Thora points out, Jon tends to make things complicated.