Old Thorgeir must leave his home far off in the icelandic 'countryside' and move into a home for senior citizens in Reykjavik. There he meets an old friend from his childhood, Stella. Thorgeir soon becomes unhappy living there and together with Stella he steals a jeep. Together they leave the city for Stella's old home in northwestern Iceland. A drama who asks us: how important is it to have a long life if you have to leave everything that has a meaning for you?Most of "Children of Nature" is about the rebellion of Geirri and Stella, a widow whom he meets at the home and who shares his impatience with this attempt, in effect, to pervert death by socializing it. One day Geirri and Stella walk out of the home, withdraw their money from the bank, steal a Jeep and start driving north.
As the Icelandic landscape becomes increasingly wild and primeval, the line between life and death gently blurs until it disappears.
"Children of Nature," a nominee for this year's Oscar as the best foreign-language film, will be shown at the Museum of Modern Art today at 6 P.M. and on Saturday at 12:15 P.M. in the New Directors/New Films series.
"Children of Nature" is an intelligent film, not easily categorized. Neither Geirri nor Stella is a character in a conventional sense. They are representations, figures in a modern myth that is dramatized in settings of spectacular, chilly beauty. Mr. Fridriksson has directed "Children of Nature" with a notable rigor, but it prompts rather more awe than passionate interest.
