I didn't mean to say "enigmatic" in my title there - I just thought it would look terribly good but I've undermined it now by writing this. I hope you can forgive me, I'm new to all this.
Flateyjargátan has little to do with the Icelandic sagas historically - and apparently bears only scant relation to the book on which it is based. Rather, the whole thing has been turned into a character piece and a commentary on female agency. Frankly, I'm way on board with that and I love Iceland so I was already up for it.
The setting is 1970s rural Iceland for the most part, so you get beautiful scenery and there's a lovely earthy colour palette running through it all. The cast are tremendously good - and all hands play it well. The uninitiated to the grim and stoic world of "scandi noir" (inaccurately named as it is here) will likely find the pace and tone quite overbearing but it's only four hours all in so it didn't crush me to death which I value. Special mention to the wonderful title sequence as well - a 3d animated bit of medieval manuscript art that is genuinely very beautiful.
It's no masterpiece, but it is a characterful and atmospheric slab of historic mystery and has a special place for me as whatever the Icelandic equivalent is for what we'd call a foreigner that loves British culture "Anglophile". "Isophile"? That sounds terrible. Forget I said anything.
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