The Last Farm is an excellently executed interpretation of a dying culture and the people who keep it alive. The film is set in rural Iceland at a small farm that time has left untouched for several decades. Vast emptiness, filled with serene beauty, surrounds the farm that is so remote that groceries and mail are only delivered once in a while. The story follows Hrafn, whose solitude is emphasized by the manual labor set against the somber music of a violin. He is very ingrained in his cultural beliefs; even though he is completely alone he is reluctant to answer the phone because it is rude to call during dinner. We learn through his phone call that he will soon be moving to a retirement community and nothing in the conversation foreshadows his later intentions of burying himself alive next to his recently deceased wife's coffin. He tells his daughter that her mother is taking a nap and is not ill. This conversation is practically the only dialog in the film and sets the theme of the film; the quiet ending of an era.
On the surface, this film could be portrayed as a film about love. His undying love for his wife superseded his duty as a father to inform his daughter of her mother's death. Perhaps he was so grief stricken that he simply couldn't bear to admit it and simply wanted to die alone with the woman he loved. However, the film is much more than that. It is about dying culture, values, and way of life.
The film is timeless. We really don't have any indication of what year it is in the film. Nothing is new. Everything is worn with a layer of patina indicating its age. The film could be set several years in the future, a few years ago, or the present. This combined with the title of the film, "The Last Farm" indicated that the story is about the last true farm in Iceland. Regardless of when this last farm disappeared, the story's purpose is to invoke the emotion of being the last. The last memories of how things were and how people saw their role in the context of the land and the people they interacted with.
Hrafn is a man of the land. He is a farmer without many modern tools. About the only machinery that he uses is his tractor. He gathers wood from the beach (no trees are present in the film), manually cuts and planes the wood, and even digs the large grave by hand. He is one man living alone building what he needs with his own hands. The music that plays while he is doing all this labor is a sole violin. This sets the mood of him not being exuberantly motivated to do this labor, but doing it because it is his duty.
What he sees as his duty is lost on his daughter who wants to take him away from the only life he has ever known and thrust him into a senior living facility. While she thinks that she is doing something good by allowing her parents to relax, it is not his life. We know that Hrafn knows that his daughter will not understand the important values that he keeps from the complete lack of any indication that he is about to kill himself. He knows what he is doing is right in his mind and doesn't want anyone to stop him. So at the same time he is building his wife's coffin, he calmly talks to his daughter to make plans for them to come.
His somber death is preceded by one final survey of the land he loves. The surrounding landscape is untouched by people with his farm being the only building for as far as the eye can see. He realizes that what he has is vanishing and his daughter who now lives in an urban area no longer values this great beauty. Due to the relentless march of modernization, his only chance to die the way he lived (by the land) is to silently die by his own hand. While others see his life as laborious and strenuous, he sees it as simply living. The self-recognition of his cultural death is powerful in the film. "The Last Farm" reminds us that the cultural beliefs we hold and try to force on others under the hope of helping them kills a culture.
On the surface, this film could be portrayed as a film about love. His undying love for his wife superseded his duty as a father to inform his daughter of her mother's death. Perhaps he was so grief stricken that he simply couldn't bear to admit it and simply wanted to die alone with the woman he loved. However, the film is much more than that. It is about dying culture, values, and way of life.
The film is timeless. We really don't have any indication of what year it is in the film. Nothing is new. Everything is worn with a layer of patina indicating its age. The film could be set several years in the future, a few years ago, or the present. This combined with the title of the film, "The Last Farm" indicated that the story is about the last true farm in Iceland. Regardless of when this last farm disappeared, the story's purpose is to invoke the emotion of being the last. The last memories of how things were and how people saw their role in the context of the land and the people they interacted with.
Hrafn is a man of the land. He is a farmer without many modern tools. About the only machinery that he uses is his tractor. He gathers wood from the beach (no trees are present in the film), manually cuts and planes the wood, and even digs the large grave by hand. He is one man living alone building what he needs with his own hands. The music that plays while he is doing all this labor is a sole violin. This sets the mood of him not being exuberantly motivated to do this labor, but doing it because it is his duty.
What he sees as his duty is lost on his daughter who wants to take him away from the only life he has ever known and thrust him into a senior living facility. While she thinks that she is doing something good by allowing her parents to relax, it is not his life. We know that Hrafn knows that his daughter will not understand the important values that he keeps from the complete lack of any indication that he is about to kill himself. He knows what he is doing is right in his mind and doesn't want anyone to stop him. So at the same time he is building his wife's coffin, he calmly talks to his daughter to make plans for them to come.
His somber death is preceded by one final survey of the land he loves. The surrounding landscape is untouched by people with his farm being the only building for as far as the eye can see. He realizes that what he has is vanishing and his daughter who now lives in an urban area no longer values this great beauty. Due to the relentless march of modernization, his only chance to die the way he lived (by the land) is to silently die by his own hand. While others see his life as laborious and strenuous, he sees it as simply living. The self-recognition of his cultural death is powerful in the film. "The Last Farm" reminds us that the cultural beliefs we hold and try to force on others under the hope of helping them kills a culture.