Female protagonists in contemporary icelandic cinema

Abstract

Modern Iceland is a country where women effectively fight for political power and social safety. However, an analysis of female characters appearing in Icelandic movies produced between 1992 and 2012 may lead to a quite different conclusion. Many film scenarios present the heroines as the victims of domestic violence who struggle not only with alcoholism and brutal behaviour of their partners, but also with a hostile social system. Such images refer to historical and literary heritage. Pessimistic perspective of Icelandic cinema serves as a source of social criticism focusing on important problems of everyday life. What is interesting, the cinema of Ulthima Thule also presents certain alternatives to victimized models of female characters. This kind of film figure in contemporary Icelandic cinema is a strong and independent woman who may be considered as a mix of classical femme fatale and post-modernistic female warrior. Such a female figure is connected with Icelandic romanticized symbols of nature from the XIX century and their XX and XXI century reinterpreta-tions. The popularity of strong movie heroines proves that women’s struggle for political power in Iceland has influenced cinema language and its interests.