Under the Tree – Undir trenu (2017)

Directed by: Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson | 89 minutes | comedy, drama | Actors: Steinþór Hróar Steinþórsson, Edda Björgvinsdóttir, Sigurður Sigurjónsson, Þorsteinn Bachmann, Selma Björnsdóttir, Lára Jóhanna Jónsdóttir, Dóra Jóhannsdóttir, Sigrídur Sittigurpál

Escalating tensions and (family) dramas can usually be easily left to Scandinavian filmmakers, who have an unerring sense of analyzing family situations and making appearances. This is no different in the Icelandic drama ‘Under the Tree’. In the film by director Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson, we see three families slowly becoming disorganized by paranoia, selfishness and obstinacy.

The film opens with images of a fallen marriage. Atli and Agnes are clearly unhappy in their marriage, which takes a serious blow when Agnes catches her husband secretly watching a sexually explicit movie starring himself. Atli is immediately thrown out of the house and is forced to move in with his parents, who are struggling with a completely different kind of problem: a lingering neighbor quarrel about their tree that, according to the neighbors, hangs too far over the fence so that the neighbor cannot lie in the sun. It seems like a fine setup for a new episode of ‘The Driving Judge’, but luckily director Sigurðsson has a lot more trump cards than just the neighbours’ quarrel. In ‘Under the Tree, the tree mainly serves a symbolic purpose: it is the catalyst that slowly bubbles up pent-up anger and emotion for years, especially in Atli’s mother, who is still struggling with the aftermath of a severe family trauma.

‘Under the Tree’ has some trouble finding a clear focus in the beginning. For a long time it remains a somewhat unbalanced drama that is at times too light-hearted to really get through to the viewer. This is mainly because almost all the characters in the first part of the film are quite annoying. Especially the role of Atli’s mother is very difficult to embrace at first, until the director gives her some more emotional depth. What is also striking is that the men in this film are largely inactive slackers, who have no answer to the dominant role of their wives. The women in ‘Under the Tree’ are driven by jealousy, envy and pent-up anger. This makes one of the last confrontations in the film between two men rather cold-hearted, although that is refreshing in a time when men in films still too often have to play the tough macho. In ‘Under the Tree’ it’s just ‘suckers’ who get caught up in a conflict fueled by their wives.

The film works especially well in its chaotic moments, with one of the highlights being a house meeting in Atli and Agnes’ flat, in which a rowdy couple confront their sexual adventures and Atli and Agnes fight their fight in public. With playful ease, Sigurðsson slowly scrapes the edges of the civilized exterior, just think of the facade that is actually the neatly raked suburb in which the neighbor quarrel takes place. In that respect ‘Under the Tree’ fits in with the trend of predecessors such as ‘Blue Velvet’ and ‘American Beauty’, who previously masterfully showed what misery can take place ‘behind the front door’ and what drastic consequences this can have.

‘Under the Tree’ ultimately offers a very cynical view of humanity and love. The depressing ending cuts it short, especially because it is somewhat out of tune with the rest of the film. In the first half, the film ripples along a bit and the film switches (too) often in tone. Sigurðsson then ends the film as a pitch-black tragedy, with which he wants to show the consequences of paranoia and unprocessed trauma. You can’t really happily walk out of the cinema after seeing ‘Under the Tree’. The ending is quite dark and the characters remain largely unsympathetic, irrational figures. Still, the film is captivating from start to finish, as Sigurðsson cleverly manages to disrupt with troubled families that are slowly crumbling, fueled by that one tree. Even the Riding Judge would no longer be able to save these sad families.