Bye Bye Blue Bird

Two girls arrive on the Faroe Islands. Hip, big-city fashionable and granted the inalienable and charming impudence of girlfriends, they soon raise hell. Not that the islanders are really impressed. As soon as they check into a small lodging house, where they pretend to be French, the receptionist puts on the French answering tape routinely. It soon becomes apparent that the mother of red-haired Rannvá lives on the island, and that their relationship leaves a lot to be desired. Black-haired Barba – Louise Brooks coiffeur – is well-known too on the island. In other words, the girls’ holiday visit is not entirely chance on an island that is not always equally hospitable. They are given a lift by the clumsy Rúni. He happens not to be very busy, even though he bas business to take care of all over, and repeatedly with a painful lack of success. The director herself is from the tiny Faroe Islands and with Bye Bye Blue Bird, Ottarsdóttir makes a kind of road movie about the occasionally contrary power that emerges from the home soil and roots. She makes the best possible use of the windy and stunningly attractive landscape, that has the unique Scandinavian characteristic of being both desolate and claustrophobic. The warmth of the acting, the catching energy of the two rebels and the comic and cheerful humour of the story counterbalance the cold facts of life.