Reykjavík Grapevine - sep. 2019, Blaðsíða 20

20 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 14— 2019
Farmers are protagonists. Sets are
sheep sheds and weather-worn farm-
houses. Tractors steal the scene. Some-
one flings mud and sheep shit out of
anger.
Grímur Hákonarson is on the verge
of premiering ‘Héraðið / The County’,
the much-anticipated follow-up to his
wildly successful ‘Rams’ from 2015. He
writes and directs social realist films
based in the Icelandic countryside; his
focus on rural communities and down-
to-earth people makes for uncommon
cinematic fodder. The portrayal of
bleak situations is at times dramatic or
comedic, and always heart-stirring—a
refreshing vision on the big screen.
Zoom in on
‘The County’
Grímur’s eye contact is unwavering.
His countenance is serene and serious.
Conversation rolls smoothly.
His demeanor indicates no underly-
ing nervousness; surprising given the
significance of this moment in his
career.
“I started to write ‘The County’
shortly after ‘Rams’ came out in 2015,”
Grímur explains. “When I made ‘Rams’,
my future was undecided. When you’re
making your first movies, you’re not
sure if you can keep on. ‘Rams’ was
my second film; my first one didn’t do
so well. I didn’t have any plans after I
made ‘Rams.’”
The Icelandic and international film
industries, however, had other plans
for Grímur’s film career. ‘Rams’ won
the coveted Cannes Film Festival’s Prix
Un Certain Regard, and was selected as
Iceland’s entry to the Academy Awards’
Foreign Language Film category in the
same year.
“After I made ‘Rams,’ a lot of doors
opened for me everywhere, in Iceland
and abroad,” Grímur recalls. “The
idea for ‘The County’ came up and so
I decided to follow up on ‘Rams’ by
making another Icelandic movie.”
Freeze frame
on revolution
On the poster for ‘The County’, protag-
onist Inga stares directly at you. Her
portrait looms over mountains, farm-
land, and a sole road. Like Grímur,
Inga’s eye contact is unwavering. She
means business.
“Inga, the main character, is a
dairy farmer running the farm with
her husband,” Grímur explains. “She
decides to revolt against a cooperative
establishment.”
A transplant from the city, Inga
operates her farm in the vicinity of the
last remaining cooperative in Iceland.
Her steely demeanour sets a tone of
stolid challenge. The rural revolution
will be televised, after all. Inga’s lopa-
peysa fades into the sky as she towers
over a road that heads into the heart of
northern farmland.
Pan shot of the
cooperative
“In ‘The County,’ the community is
suppressed by this one company, the
cooperative,” says Grímur. “Iceland’s
farming cooperatives used to be part
of the cooperative movement from
the 19th century. It’s very old, but the
cooperative movement collapsed in the
1990s.”
In real life, only one coopera-
tive exists now in Iceland, located in
the northern region of Skagafjörður.
‘The County’ is based on the fictional
corruption of the last cooperative to
endure in contemporary society.
“Cooperatives were originally for
the farmers to get higher prices for
their products and lower prices for
accessories,” details Grímur. “But
today, this company operates in almost
every business in the area—in the fish-
ing industry, in transportation, super-
markets, everything except hotels and
restaurants. The farmers produce for
the coop and buy everything from it.
It’s owned by a few thousand people
and it’s not meant to be profit-based.
In its essence, it’s a nice ideal that is
meant to be society-friendly. But here
we have the good old story; a few people
take control and become corrupt.”
‘The County’ was filmed on
northern Iceland’s Búðardalur and
Hvammstangi farmlands, though
place names were fictionalised.
Grímur explains why fictionalising
the community was important for the
film: “Because it is a political movie,
we didn’t want to get shooed from
anyone. The community in the film is
much smaller than the community in
Skagafjörður. We made it smaller for
practical reasons.”
Close-up on
feminist film
Enter Inga, who has suffered a personal
loss that pushes her into the revolt.
“She is a woman who is not from the
area; she’s not home-grown and has
a different perspective of the society.”
Grímur smiles. “You could say it is a
feminist film.”
The idea for her character emerged
through Grímur’s friendship with
women working as farmers in north-
ern Iceland. “I’ve experienced myself
that women are getting into the farm-
ing community, taking more control.
It wasn’t like that when I was young. It
was more male-oriented. Inga’s char-
acter is based on a few women I know
from the countryside, driving tractors
and doing everything by themselves. It
used to be more divided.”
His own experiences with Icelandic
farmland give him a life-long under-
standing for the subjects he engages. “I
“I have this fetish
to use real people
for small roles. We
had professional
actors for the
main roles, but a
lot of characters
are played by real
farmers.”