It’s easy to be overcome with curiosity as a child, especially when it comes to the adults around you. After all, they have responsibilities and privileges beyond your wildest dreams: They drive cars! Have jobs! Go out on dates! Fall in love! But, as you grow older, you eventually learn that there is a dark side to this world of infinite possibility.
The Swan, adapted by writer-director Ása Helga Hjörleifsdóttir from the acclaimed Icelandic novel of the same name by Guðbergur Bergsson, chronicles one summer in the life of a young girl whose eyes are opened to the previously unfathomable complexities of adulthood after she finds herself drawn in by the troubles of others. It’s a lovely examination of disappointment and heartbreak through the eyes of someone observing these things for the first time.
Coming of Age Beneath the Midnight Sun
A nine-year-old girl named Sól (Gríma Valsdóttir) is sent to live and work on the farm of relatives in the remote countryside after she gets in trouble for stealing. It is thought that a summer of hard work and fresh air will help the wayward Sól mature and grow. However, Sól finds it hard to connect with the farmer and his wife, preferring the company of animals and an introspective farmhand named Jón (Thor Kristjansson). Jón would rather spend his time wrestling with words than talking with people; a writer who is constantly scribbling his thoughts down in journals. His mentorship helps quiet, imaginative Sól discover her own inner storyteller.
Sharing a small room in the farmer’s house, Sól and Jón become close friends in a way that belies the age difference between the two. But everything changes when the daughter of the house, Ásta (Þuríður Blær Jóhannsdóttir), arrives home from university for the summer. A free spirit who spends her time riding the stallion gifted to her by her boyfriend, Ásta emits an aura of brash confidence that can only come from being the golden child of a provincial town, a beloved prodigal daughter returned to the fold to be doted on no matter what indiscretions she might be guilty of.
Like many young girls who long to discover the mysteries of what adulthood might hold, Sól becomes fascinated with Ásta – especially once she realizes that Ásta’s relationship with Jón is much more intense than it first appears. Through Sól’s innocent eyes, we spy on Ásta and Jón having a secret meeting in a meadow and quickly discover that the two of them have a complex history, one that only becomes more complicated when it is revealed that Ásta has returned home from university early because she is pregnant.
By hovering on the periphery of their fraught romance, Sól receives her first dose of the aches and pains of coming of age, without truly understanding the gravity of the events that are spiralling out of control around her. She’s an Icelandic Alice in Wonderland, hurtling down the rabbit hole of adulthood.
The Dark Magic of Adulthood
The most striking thing about The Swan is the way it stays true to Sól’s perspective for the entirety of the film; the audience knows very little that Sól does not know, though we may understand it slightly better than she does, seeing it through older and more experienced eyes. This elicits a twisted form of nostalgia that forces one to recall such definitive moments in one’s own childhood – moments that may have taken a while to fully comprehend despite having an almost immediate effect on one’s perspective of the world.
Yet by seeing Ásta and Jón and the other villagers solely from Sól’s outsider viewpoint, much that is a mystery to Sól remains a mystery to us as well. This infuses the film with an almost hallucinatory atmosphere, forcing us to repeatedly ask ourselves if we are truly seeing what we – and Sól – think we’re seeing.
Sól’s narration of her own inventive, surreal stories frequently forms a contrasting backdrop for the events playing out onscreen in The Swan, which only adds to the feeling that what we’re observing is an altogether different kind of reality, one that has a vein of primeval magic running through it.
This is only aided by the otherworldly atmosphere of the landscape, with the natural drama of the Icelandic countryside echoing the intensity of the human events playing out beneath the dreamlike glow of the Midnight Sun. The Swan is beautifully shot, with cinematographer Martin Neumeyer portraying the vast Icelandic sky and the intimate spaces of the farmhouse with equally effortless grace.
Of course, all of this breathtaking beauty would mean nothing if the characters at the heart of the story were not worth following. Fortunately, the three leads in The Swan all give impressive performances, with the young Gríma Valsdóttir a particular standout as Sól. Valsdóttir manages to simultaneously convey both Sól’s natural childlike innocence and her odd sense of wisdom; she is both clearly a child and yet wise beyond her years.
It’s a subtle and engaging balance that keeps the character of Sól from becoming too annoying or precocious. The adults too are remarkable and manage to bring out their characters’ complexities without veering into all-too-easy cliché. Ásta could have come off too selfish to care about, but in the hands of Þuríður Blær Jóhannsdóttir, we also see the vulnerability that she struggles to hide behind her bravado. And while Jón could have easily been written off as a creepy sexual predator, Thor Kristjansson’s soulful portrayal gives him added depth.
Conclusion: The Swan
In the sea of stellar coming-of-age films that have recently been released – Eighth Grade, Lady Bird, Mustang – The Swan’s beautiful blend of human drama and magical realism is still unique enough to stand out.
What do you think? Does The Swan sound like an interesting take on the coming-of-age tale? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
The Swan was released in the U.S. on August 10, 2018. You can find more international release dates here.
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