A still from the movieCategory: World Cinema
Language: Icelandic
Director: Grimur Hakonarson
Running time: 1hour 33 minutes
Two brothers who live next door in a valley in Iceland, both rearing rams of the same ancestral breed, haven’t spoken to each other in 40 years. Gummi and Kiddi are metonyms for the ram—ready to lock horns anytime.
Set against the wondrous beauty of the valleys of Iceland, Rams is an endearing story of the love between the rams and the brothers, something they lost between each other. Rams bagged a handful of awards at various festivals, and is featured in the World Cinema section in IFFK 2015.
Both the brothers take part in competitions that judge the best ram of the locality, trying to outdo each other, very year. After one such competition, where Kiddi, the alcohol-guzzling, more ferocious of the siblings, takes home the prize, Gummi notices symptoms of ‘scrapie’ in Kiddi’s prize-winning ram. It’s an incurable disease that affects the brain and spinal cord of rams.
When the message is passed on to Kiddi by mediators, he responds with a well-aimed bullet that shoots through Gummi’s bedroom window. But it’s not long before rumours make their rounds and the authorities come checking. They confirm the disease and order the culling of all the rams in the locality, for the disease was known to be infectious.
This crippling news isn’t taken well by Kiddi and some others considering livestock is their primary source of income. While forced culling is implemented, Kiddi vehemently refuses to cooperate, whereas the more logical and determined Gummi, quietly resorts to outwit the authorities. He kills off all his sheep except for a few that he saves inside a fenced room in his house.
It doesn’t take long before Kiddi snoops around and finds out Gummi’s secret. At the same time, the local authorities get a whiff of the matter, and they could come by anytime to cull the sheep.
The story skilfully points out the light humour in times of tragedy, while detailing the secluded country life that people live. While for the major part, we regard the story as touchingly simple, the brain is in its execution with a crisp narrative to a chilly, startling and warm climax.
Star factors
» Icelandic woolly rams!
» The lead actors Sigudur Sigurjonsson as Gummi and Theodor Juliusson as Kiddi. While in the first half, it’s the steely and silent Gummi that takes credit, Kiddi surprises with his emotional force in the latter part of the film.
» Splendid cinematography that winds on to the windy barren prairie land that turns snow-swept and icy.
» A meditative story that is edited crisp and narrated well infusing elements of comedy—catch Gummi scooping a sloshed Kiddi onto a tracked loader from snow-laden grounds carrying him all way and depositing him in front of the hospital!
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