“The Swan” is a wonderfully understated coming of age story.
Young Sόl (a startingly stupendous young performer by the name of Gríma Valsdóttir) is something of a “problem child” at home, and so is sent away by her parents to live and work with her distant relatives — the Farmer (Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson) and the Farmer’s Wife (Katla M. Þorgeirsdóttir) — in the Icelandic countryside. Once she arrives, the Farmer quickly puts her work. Needless to say, Sόl isn’t happy about it. (The first thing Sόl does is construct a lie about her father leaving her mother, and therefore she needs to go back home.)
Practically as soon as she’s given the chance to settle in, a new stranger shows up: Jόn (Thor Kristjansson), a farmhand who comes to help the family every. The two outsiders quickly discover that they have something in common: they both prefer words — stories — to people. Every night, Jόn scribbles his thoughts away in his notebook, much like Sόl is constantly reinterpreting the world around her through her storytelling. And so, they bond.
But before long, the Farmer’s/Farmer’s Wife’s daughter, Ásta (Þuríður Blær Jóhannsdóttir) unexpectedly comes home from university. It fast becomes clear that there’s a history between the daughter and the farmhand, and Sόl becomes entangled in their drama.
The Swan is a classic coming of age story if that wasn’t clear already. The refrain many artistically-inclined young people (like Sόl) grow up hearing is “hard work builds character.” Maybe so, but the hard work isn’t what forces Sόl to grow up: it’s being thrown into an adult world courtesy of Jόn and Ásta, their relationship and its implications being beyond the comprehension of a nine-year-old.
The Swan is the kind of low-key, slow-burn indie drama that can turn out to be mesmerizing and poignant or pretentious and insufferable. Luckily, we have on our hands the former. It takes a keen directorial eye and a firm grasp of the craft to convey meaning and emotion in languid shots of countryside and pastoral happenings (of which there are many) without them coming across as hollow substitutes for tone and theme.
The film would be an achievement for a director of any experience, but it’s doubly so for being the first feature of writer/director Ása Helga Hjörleifsdóttir. She imbues every frame with such rich emotional subtext and captures every subtlety of the performances. I don’t speak Icelandic. When watching foreign-language films, it’s sometimes hard to make a judgment call on the quality of the acting; but that wasn’t the case here. Young Gríma Valsdóttir, at only 12, speaks volumes with only the look in her eyes.
The Swan beautifully and honestly captures a major turning point of childhood. The storytelling is exquisite in its own, understated way. We view the story from Sόl’s perspective. We catch glimpses of the central conflict between Jόn and Ásta but never quite get the whole story, just what she gleans from overhearing a conversation here, seeing something she wasn’t supposed to there. Is the narrative technically “cohesive?” No. But it’s not supposed to be. The best way I can think to describe the film is that in being incohesive it is cohesive.
In a way, the film is sort of like a memory in retrospect. I know I, like Sόl, had those moments in my life where things irrevocably changed, whether it was due to something new I learned, a major shake-up in my worldview due to some sort of event, or something else entirely. But the memories of those times aren’t always clear. They’re fragmented, stitched together from what I experienced at the time and the context I was later able to apply. And that’s what it felt like to experience The Swan. It was like listening to someone recount a summer many years ago that set them on the course to being who they are today. Which, if you ask me, is an effect that is stunning. And, unfortunately, all too rare.
Release Date: August 10, 2018 – New York – Village East Cinema
August 17, 2018 – Los Angeles – Laemmle Royal
