Seen at...
Rift
Original Title
Rökkur- Director: Erlingur Thoroddsen
- Writer: Erlingur Thoroddsen
- Producer: Bui Baldvinsson; Gunnar Helgi Guðjónsson
CGiii Comment
If you like your films to be all neatly packaged, tied up with string and bows...then, this film is - most definitely - not for you.
If, on the other hand, you like to be kept in the dark, teased and trifled with, amid a beautiful and eerie landscape...with screaming echoes of a bygone, [now] unrequited love...while being watched by someone or something lurking in the shadows...then, Rift is right up your windswept [v]alley.
It just goes to show what talent can do with a shoestring budget...use what you've got...rather than redundantly moaning about what haven't! Erlingur Thoroddsen does just that...sometimes, less is definitely more.The less you get...the more you want!
Now, we might be going out on a limb here, bear with us...but, the parallels with the haunting and majestic Picnic at Hanging Rock are staring you in the face [well, our faces at least]! Landscape, cinematography, music, remoteness, an indistinguishable presence...and, no explanation! See...it does make sense! And, like Picnic, Rift is sensory...you can almost smell the chill, taste the tension, feel the goosebumps, hear the mystery!
Really...this is an exceptional film...for the financial constraints it had. To re-iterate: This is what talent can do with little!
Trailer...
The(ir) Blurb...
Months after they broke up, Gunnar receives a strange phone call from his ex-boyfriend, Einar. He sounds distraught, like he's about to do something terrible to himself. Gunnar drives up to the secluded cabin where Einar is holed up and soon discovers that there's more going on than he imagined. As the two men come to terms with their broken relationship, some other person seems to be lurking outside the cabin, wanting to get in.
Cast & Characters
Björn Stefánsson as Gunnar;
Sigurður Þór Óskarsson as Einar;
Guðmundur Ólafsson as Grétar;
Aðalbjörg Árnadóttir as Gyða;
Anna Eva Steindórsdóttir as Sjáandi;
Böðvar Óttar Steindórsson as Leemoy