The Sacred Mound (1993)

When 7-year-old Gestur's mother goes abroad she sends him away to a farm in the country. There Gestur makes friends with Helga, a 20-year-old woman who in the beginning is more of a mother substitute. Soon she becomes the boy's object of desire, and he cannot stand the thought that there may be another man in Helga's life. When Gestur discovers that she actually has a boyfriend, he becomes so jealous that he concocts a plan so cruel only a child in love could have thought of it. COMMENTARY Hrafn Gunnlaugsson is back in the present again after several films set in prehistoric Iceland. This semi-autobiographical story of the sexual awakening of a boy is set in today's Iceland. Gestur - the boy carries the same name as the protagonist in the Raven films and is obsessed by Vikings - is left with relatives in the country by his mother, a classical pianist. Goodbye computer games and central heating, hello fish gutting and skinnydipping. The beginning is impressive. Gestur's journey from the town to the country, with the extravagant Icelandic landscape in the background, is registered with the concerned and curious eye of a child. When he finally gets there little Gestur is feeling a bit lost. The blond and by Gunnlaugsson diligently exposed Helga arouses Gestur's sleeping hormones. Gestur's dreams are occupied by her nude body in front of the sketch-booll in the daytime and in bed at night. The thought of Helga's boyfriend arriving in a white plastic boat gives him nightmares. The story of the child who is uprooted from his family and environment, and the sadness over what is lost and won through new self-knowledge and understanding of life, is a worn out theme. Gestur gets to tell Helga about the Viking movies that he is going to make when he grows up. The films that ''Rappen'' Gunnlaugsson has already made, that is. Time is displaced and not very surprisingly, in the end an old Viking legend plays the main part in this film as well. Hrafn Gunnlaugsson paints his childhood memories in clear and bright colors. The Viking film trilogy's darkness and violence have been replaced by a beautifully shot morality about the intoxicating and painful moment when the child becomes aware of its sexuality. The director says that never before has the actors' performances pleased him so much as they did this time. Steinthor Matthiasson more than confirms Hrafn Gunnlaugsson's claim. This little tenyear-old carries the movie on his narrow shoulders