AND BREATHE NORMALLY: An Intelligent, Low-key Drama

And Breathe Normally is an Icelandic drama written by Ísold Uggadóttir, and she’s a fairly big name on the indie film circuit; she’s been involved as a writer on a few other Icelandic films. This one, which she both wrote and directed, won the World Cinema Dramatic Directing Award at Sundance. If nothing else, the festival is known for championing marginalised voices; if it wasn’t for them, the excellent Sorry To Bother You may never have seen the light of day.

You’d expect something to have won an award at Sundance to be original and politically relevant in some way, and this one delivers on that front.

The Film’s Influences

The film tells the story of a down-and-out single mother named Lára, played by Kristín Þóra Haraldsdóttir. Early on, it’s revealed that she’s in a lot of debt, and there are hints here and there of her past life, in which she was hooked on drugs and living in a squat with a group of other addicts. She also has a young son. The film begins with what must be a couple of years after those events: she is now living alone, and appears to be clean, though the debt is still hanging over her head.

At around the twenty minute mark, she lands a job as a border control guard, and as a result of her spotting a fake passport, a woman on the way to Canada is separated from her family and detained in a home for people who appear to have no citizenship. Partly through Lára’s guilt, the two women form an unlikely friendship.

It’s easy to understand why And Breathe Normally was praised so highly at Sundance. On a purely technical level, the film is extremely competently made: it paints a picture of a Europe which has been marred by far-right politicians who have used migrants as scapegoats for their own short-comings, though the film isn’t so much interested in their rise to power as it is the fallout of their policies.

Everyone seems to live in tall, Brutalist Soviet-era apartment blocks and the landscapes look like something out of a post-apocalyptic film. There’s something of Tarkovsky’s Stalker in there, though And Breathe Normally is far less abstract than his work. But the setting works.

From the off-set, you care about the two main women. Each is experiencing a different kind of pain, and the drama stands up to scrutiny because you get the sense that they both understand each other despite having come from two entirely different parts of the globe, and leading lives which couldn’t be any more different. The film’s subtly told feminist and pro-immigration narrative is its strongest point. Despite the bleak landscape, and the Uggadóttir’s cynical view of modern Europe, there is a sense of optimism in the story.

Nuanced Politics

It would be easy for the director to simply say, ‘the situation in Europe is unjust,’ but she goes a step further than that. At the film’s core, there is a fundamental sense of optimism, a belief that even if the entire world is against them, individuals can make a difference by simply supporting each-other, and being defiant of people who are trying to enforce a Status Quo built on dispossession and brutality. On paper, it sounds like a cheesy conceit, but Uggadóttir handles it very well.

And Breathe Normally: Conclusion

There’s a sense of quiet, meditative activism in the film that I really admire. Unfortunately, I don’t think the film will be a huge hit; it doesn’t have the larger-than-life dramatic moments of films like Roma or Children of Men, both of which could be seen as comparison pieces for And Breathe Normally, but I don’t think Uggadóttir was interested in making a film with sweeping dramatic moments. She was trying to make a film which forces people to think about the way Europe is heading, and how it affects the continent itself and the wider world.

There’s a lot to admire, and the film is very much worth seeking out.

What did you think of And Breathe Normally? Have you seen it? Let us know in the comments.

And Breathe Normally was on VOD in the US on January 4, 2019. For all international release dates, see here.