The story begins with the discovery of a body in an apartment and separately, a genetic researcher called Örn burying his four-year-old daughter who has died from a rare illness. Experienced detective Erlandur investigates and the trail takes him back 30 years when there were allegations of rape, police corruption, an unsolved disappearance and the death of another young girl from the same rare illness.
Erlandur also has his hands full with his own drug-addicted daughter who is constantly trying to get money off him and has now gotten herself pregnant.
In the end, the mystery is untangled and everything ties together, along the way, we are treated to some dour Icelandic characters and dodgy criminals, some of which are on the police payroll.
I wasn't expecting much but I quite liked it and it sustained my interest all the way through. An intriguing film, which managed to go back thirty years without any flashbacks. Then just to catch me out, it flashed back a couple of times to the later day murder. It was particularly confusing because two of the lead characters looked a bit similar.
Jar City is an excellent thriller, although a bit like a TV police series, Colombo meets CSI, that sort of thing. The difference was, it was cliché and unnecessary swearing free, which obviously it wouldn't have been had it been made in America, unless of course they just omitted them from the subtitles. Then of course, they had the advantage of the outstanding location. We were treated to some great shots of the bleak terrain, although there wasn't enough snow.
The pièce de résistance was the gruesome scene of Erlandur pulling up at the fast food drive-in, ordering his takeaway meal and then taking his sheep's head home, where he eats it with his penknife, starting with the eyeball of course. Welcome to Iceland.
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