CIFF: Volcano

This screening from Iceland at 2011's Chicago International Film Festival was billed as an unconventional "coming of age" story. When referring to coming of age stories, we are used to seeing portrayals of the confusing years of puberty, but in Volcano, the person coming of age is the just-retired Hannes. In small ways we see how Hannes dominates his family and this story is of his realization that he has to mature emotionally as well take responsibility for things that should matter to him, namely the people in his life.  The film was written and directed by Rúnar Rúnarsson.


Hannes is reluctantly giving up his job as a school caretaker, where he relishes his small bits of power. After his retirement party, Hannes briefly considers suicide, but instead takes his retirement to heart. After all, his wife Anna is more than happy to cook his meals and clean his clothes, what more can he desire?   That desire seems to be fishing in his dump of a boat, which springs an awful leak, prompting Hannes to prop it up in the back garden to repair.

But Anna suffers a stroke, leaving her in a comatose, vegetative state. This, coupled with an overheard conversation between their grown children criticizing him, makes Hannes suddenly realize how selfish he has been, and with gusto he aims to take care of his wife's every need, a grand gesture payback for all she has done for him over the years even if she can't appreciate it.  But Hannes finds the job a bigger physical and emotional toll than he can take, and we see him teetering on that fine line of increasing Anna's pain medication to end both their suffering.

I really liked the character of Anna, who, despite Hannes' cantankerousness, takes his moods in stride.  I felt that Hannes' change to a more dutiful husband to be a little too sudden and needed a bit more introspection; even after overhearing his children's conversation he does little to repair the relationship with his children, instead focusing all his attention on his wife. I felt he still had some way to go to maturity.

There is a plotline regarding a past volcano eruption that devastated their hometown to the point where they cannot return there. Of course this relates to Hannes' storyline: unable to take back what was said and done in the past, but, like the volcano, a new dusting of ash can fertilize growth.  Will Hannes grow, or will another eruption devastate his accomplishments?

The film is clean and elegantly shot, with a color palette of cool grays and blues, both signifying the bleak storyline as well as playing into Hannes' love of the ocean.