Djöflaeyan

Movie: Devil’s Island. An Icelandic film from 1996 set in the 1950s about the three grown children of a gold-digging woman who leaves for America with her latest conquest. The children live with their grandparents in an abandoned army barracks. Since the mother sent money, I was as confused as the little kid who asked “Why do we live in a hut?” And I didn’t understand the gal-next-door’s decision to marry the Baddi brother over the Danni brother. Baddi’s time spent visiting his mother in America I guess was supposed to give him status and thereby popularity, but his character isn’t the least bit charming. Particularly when the brightest thing he says is, “I was downtown once in America” and he spends his weekends on The Circuit, drinking himself even more senseless. I learned “prison is better than being on a trawler” and “candles are the devil’s engines and ghosts of the past.” And Icelandic women sure can yell. The plane ride over the stunning countryside was spectacular.