The film is set in the 1950's and -- similar to the early films of Robert Altman -- consists of a rag-tag ensemble of colorful characters and features quirky gags and dramatic situations around one locale. In this case, it's four generations of one family living together in a squalid old Quonset hut, left by the Americans after World War II, in one of the lower class sections of Reykjavik.

The characters are set up at first as cartoon caricatures. Grandmother is an old bag with a cigarette dangling from her mouth and curlers in her hair, Grandfather is a good natured working class man with one day beard growth and the rest of the family fall into the various personality type categories that make for good laughs.

The film begins with a wedding and ends with a funeral and in between are a number of odd ball adventures, as well as droll comedic situations and hapless tragedy striking at key moments. Characters seem to always find their true calling and then pay for it down the line.

After the wedding Baddi (Baltasar Kormakur) the favorite grandson goes to America to live with his mother. He leaves as a friendly, loving character but comes back a rebellious, hard drinking, black-leather-jacket-wearing lout. He makes life hard for everyone and to make things worse every night after tearing up the town he invites over his no-good friends to come wreck the house. Meanwhile Donnie, the introverted grandson, pines for the girl next door, and Dolly the bitterly unhappy granddaughter - who's married to a loser - has to take care of her mother's three children.

The film's tone is all over the place, pitched between black comedy and bleak drama, and it would be annoying if Fridriksson's direction were not so skillful. Best of all, he keeps the whole thing relatively unpredictable. One way he does this is by refusing to center the narrative on any one person. He specifically keeps things focused on the family, the environment and the conditions under which they live. And it becomes clear that the only way they can survive their circle of hell is to stick together.

The Video:
As usual Fox Lorbor does a passable job with the transfer. It is (according to PR sources) presented in anamorphic widescreen 1.85 to 1 but it looks more like something closer to 1.65 to 1. The colors are mostly muted and the whole film has a slight sepia look that both evokes a nostalgic feeling, as well as lending itself well to the muddy brown locale. The film was transferred from a good source but the transfer isn't so great because there is a slight compression problem in the background on a of the few shots.

Sound:
The sound is Dolby Digital 5.0 stereo, which is good for the numerous 1950's rock songs on the soundtrack. Most of the dialogue is in Icelandic and there are yellow easy to read subtitles, which can be removed.

Extras:
The extras are at a bare minimum. There are production credits, short filmographies on the director and two of the actors. The film had a very small release so it's possible there was no trailer because the DVD features a trailer to Fridriksson most popular film "Cold Fever". The DVD also fails to take advantage of the episodic nature of the film because it only has eight chapters.

Overall Comments:
Fox Lorbor is great at releasing (via Winstar) relatively unknown foreign films and they should be commended for doing that. But they also have a reputation for doing little in the form of extra goodies or high quality transfers. Such is the case with this disc. It's a good film that's worth seeing but one you should rent rather than buy.