Ryd

AFTER A LONG STAY ABROAD IN ORDER to avoid a prison sentence, Petur returns to the scene of the crime he maintains he never committed. His return stirs up uncomfortable memories, not the least for the garageowner Baddi, whose murdered wife Petur had an affair with. In addition Baddi's daughter Sissa now is attracted to Petur, as well. Repressed emotions finally explode in a violent showdown after Petur and Sissa have become a couple, and Sissa has recalled how her mother died. The title of the film, Rust, should be understood both literally and morally. The harsh Icelandic scenery makes an exotic background for this dark psychological thriller with lyrical undercurrents. Exquisite photography by the Swede Göran Nilsson. Music by the minimalist Wim Mertens.
Comment:
FREUD AND THE GODS HAVE MADE AN agreement about the destinies lived by the people tramelled to Baddi's garage. But they're not our gods, the ancient Greek or the old Norse gods are the ones who have their fingers in this game. It's no voluptuous German lady stepping off in the middle of nowhere - it's a Nordic relative to Mad Max throwing the garage door open, an inverted Bagdad Cafe on the windswept Icelandic moor. Cold, dark, silent. The visitor, as far as that goes, has come to spread light but not to delight. He is going to open old wounds and let everything collapse.
Love, infidelity, jealousy, vanity, murder, revenge, blood feud: characteristics and actions befitting a classical god, ingredients befitting a good story.
No one was as touchy, as grumpy, as horny, yes, as human as our forgotten gods. They've been pushed away in order to make space for the story-destroyer Jesus, ever since Augustinus allied himself with Christianity. (Though it took him, Jesus, half a millennium to get to this remote corner in the North, from Rome.)
In Rust no other cheeks are turned. Everything is driven along by human needs and emotions, all the way to the bitter end. When hate no longer is blind, it's shouldered instead by the one who cannot yet see. Nothing good triumphs here, but neither does the evil, because what is good and what is evil among humans are rarely possible to tell. Only the one who devoutedly has found his salvation believes himself, presumably with natural right, able to point out good and evil.
Our society and our lives may be imprinted by Christian values but our culture and our story telling are still, luckily, firmly tied to our old gods. The church's good and evil way of thinking has certainly permeated the movie industry. Yes, it's useful as a theme, but plots are not constructed around that conflict. We have seen it to boredom, the nasty one and the nice one knocking each other down in Apestick I, II & III ad infinitum ... The only variation on the theme is choice of weapons. Vanity, touchiness, vengeance, in short humanity is needed in order to make the stew boil. Give us more of the old gods.
HÅKAN ÖSTLUNDH