Synopsis: 1952. Her wartime American husband freshly buried (she claims it was a heart attack), the beautiful Freyja (Margrét Vilhjálmsdóttir) makes a big splash upon her return to her tiny but civilized Icelandic fishing village. Her new fashions (five suitcases' worth) delight her family and captivate every man she sees, including the local constable Magnús (Hilmir Snoer Gudnason) and a wealthy engineer, Björn Theédér (Heino Ferch). He's of a different class and engaged to the local magistrate's daughter, but Freyja doesn't drop him as her target for matrimony - she can't wait to spar with his battle-axe of a mother. Meanwhile, young Agga (Ugla Egilsdóttir) graduates from chocolate smears on her face to being a young lady, all the while suspicious of Freyja's past and present activities. What does Freyja do on those dark nights, walking out alone onto the lava floes? Is she communing with spirits or demons? And why is Freyja so keen on portraying the Ice Fairy in the local play?
The Seagull's Laughter charms us from beginning to end. Freyja comes home to a kind of rough-hewn matriarchy where the hardy women keep ends together while the men go out on fishing boats or work in faraway Reykjavik. Seeing the parade of odd-shaped but gloriously uninhibited females go nuts over her American wardrobe is just the beginning of the fun. Freyja sticks out like a Fifth Avenue model in these hick environs and intends to snare a good mate while she still has her hourglass figure. The other girls and matrons can't understand why she doesn't eat, and how she maintains a twenty inch waist and large breasts!
Director Ágúst Gudmundsson cleverly interprets what must be a very strange book, with deft art direction and droll management of a likeable cast. Young Ugla Egilsdóttir is Agga, a curious kid who behaves a bit like Christina Ricci from The Addams Family. She's constantly presenting the handsome policeman Magnús with dead-on accurate information about Freyja's suspicious activities, and he consistently dismisses them as the fantasies of a jealous kid. In a shrewd use of new technology, the director has some Icelandic rock formations morph just a little as Agga approaches - is this really a Norse land of magic, or is Agga just hallucinating?
We could easily picture Freyja in a suit of armor and leading an army like the Icelandic queen of Fritz Lang's Die Niebelungen saga. She instead turns her energies to landing her desired husband, and after she wins him, wresting control of his upscale household from his stone-faced mother. All the real battles in this film are between the women, with the men completely neutered by feminine wiles - at one point Freyja even invites three homeless drunks into the house to get a rise in her mother-in-law's blood pressure.
The Seagull's Laughter makes all of this fascinating, thanks to great art direction, the clean & luminous Icelandic landscape (I'm ready to go) and the hearty directness of the personalities on screen. Margrét Vilhjálmsdóttir is darn near unforgettable as a unique film creation, a kind of volcanic love goddess with knee-length red tresses that braid into 50 different hairstyles. Freyja subscribes to the marital philosophy of Ruth Gordon in Lord Love a Duck: "In our family, dear, we don't divorce our men - we bury 'em." I think I'd volunteer to be wed & buried by this siren.
Although the last couple of minutes pay off thematically, the story purposely leaves a number of its larger questions unanswered. It's still an undeservedly obscure gem, one that I'll look forward to sharing with friends.
Home Vision Entertainment's DVD of The Seagull's Laughter is a perfect-looking presentation of a film from a remote corner of the North Atlantic, where we hope the gulf stream keeps the temperatures at reasonable levels. The sound is as clear as a bell, allowing us to appreciate the fascinating Icelandic language - which does not sound like Danish, Swedish or Norwegian.
The disc comes with an entertaining making-of featurette that shows the director proudly setting up his massive crowd scene: 100 people. It looks like they're having a great time. The director also provides informative and amusing liner notes (why can't we import talent like this guy for a change?), and provocative and idiosyncratic trailers and TV spots.
For more information about The Seagull's Laughter, visit Home Vision Entertainment. To order The Seagull's Laughter, go to TCM Shopping.
by Glenn Erickson
