The
novel won an Icelandic crime fiction award, but the film is billed as horror
all the way. That makes sense, because it has ghosts. It is also unusually
moody and atmospheric. Angry spirits from the past make trouble for the
present-day living in Óskar Thór Axelsson’s I Remember You (trailer
here), which releases today on DVD and BluRay.
Freyr
is a police psychologist, but he cannot cure himself or solve his most
significance case. His young son Benni vanished without a trace, never to be
seen again, but not from a lack of trying on Freyr’s part. Work should be a
healthy distraction for him, but this particular case will not be good for
anyone. It seems that half a dozen senior citizens had their backs carved with
tiny crosses for months before they were finally murdered by someone familiar
with the circumstances of their school yard bullying from some sixty years
prior. Their chief victim, Bernódus would be the prime suspect had he not
disappeared under mysterious circumstances decades earlier.
Soon,
Freyr is having visions of a little ghostly boy. He assumes they are
stress-induced hallucinations, but he is unsure whether it is Benni or Bernódus.
Initially, it is unclear to us what any of this has to do with the married
couple and their third wheel friend who are refurbishing a dilapidated farmhouse
on a remote island, but all will be revealed in good time.
Thanks
to cinematographer Jakob Ingimundarson and some richly detailed and distressed
set design, IRY is one of the spookiest
looking and most stylish horror films of the last few years. It might be
somewhat divisive among genre fans, because it leaves many conspicuously large
loose ends dangling untied. Nevertheless, the closure it allows is quite
dramatic.
As
Freyr, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson is quite believably and compellingly haunted,
in a psychological sense, without resorting to any phony theatrics. He is
Icelandic after all, as his name would indicate. Sara Dögg Ásgeirsdóttir does
not have so much to work with as his partner, but they still play off each
other well. On the other hand, Anna Gunnudis Guomundsdottir freaks out quite vividly,
at least by Scandinavian standards, as the wife in the ill-fated farm house
story arc.
Axelsson’s
previous feature, Black’s Game had
its merits, but IRY represents a quantum
step up. This is a powerfully eerie film with smart dialogue and a very human
sensibility at its core. Highly recommended for fans of literate horror films
and Scandinavian mysteries, I Remember
You (with no reference to Johnny Mercer intended) is now available on DVD and BluRay.
