E-Mail This Article to a Friend THE SEAGULL’S LAUGHTER

Iceland looks like another planet, and when Freyja (Margrét Vilhjálmsdóttir) returns there from America in 1953 after the mysterious death of her young husband, she certainly looks alien — a curvy glamor girl compared with the dun and dowdy women of the tiny fishing village. She appears especially menacing to 11-year-old Agga (Ugla Egilsdóttir), and Ágúst Guðmundsson’s layered and understated look at post-WW2 pre-feminism Iceland follows the sleuthy pre-teen as she spies on Freyja romancing around the village and stealing across lava fields late at night. Shots of Freyja looming on jagged cliffs suggest the supernatural, and her presence infuses the village women with new power: men no longer get away with boozing, abusing, and sleeping around. (In Scandinavian mythology, Freyja is the goddess of love, albeit a violent and temperamental one.) The film, which swept Iceland’s version of the Academy Awards, is part noirish mystery, part mythic allegory, part comic battle of the sexes, and part coming-of-age story. But its disparate elements don’t quite jell. And they’re not helped by the soundtrack: no matter what the era, brassy big band is incongruous against the severity of the landscape. In Icelandic with English subtitles. (100 minutes)