Neil Baker
Quake receives its World Premiere at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival on November 20th.
Based on the best-selling book by Audur Jonsdóttir, which was nominated for the Icelandic Literary Prize. Writer and director Tinna Hrafnsdóttir’s film adaptation of Jonsdóttir’s novel was an Industry Select choice at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. Starring Anita Briem (Journey to the Centre of the Earth) and Edda Björgvinsdóttir (Under the tree), Hrafnsdóttir’s adaptation of Quake is now about to receive its premiere at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.
Saga (Briem) is a single mum whose life changes forever when a sudden epileptic fit strikes as she plays with her six-year-old son in a public park. As she recovers in the hospital, her memory is shrouded in thick fog. But while her past remains a mystery, Saga hides her loss from others, afraid she will lose her son. And as each day passes, she searches for the answers she needs in the world around her. But as Saga slowly puts together the pieces of her missing life, repressed memories start to surface; memories locked away since childhood. The result is a slowly emerging truth about herself and a past she repressed long ago.
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Hrafnsdóttir’s delicate yet powerful exploration of memory and family is both beautiful and assured. Her screenplay, wrapping us in Saga’s slowly crumbling world before rebuilding that world through the shards of a fractured memory. Here, Saga’s journey is powerful in the hands of Briem, her performance rooted in the emotionally unstable energy of loss as we journey toward the films final twist. But, when you add to this the atmospheric and beautiful cinematography of Tómas Örn Tómasson, Quake becomes a haunting journey into the faultlines of memory, family and childhood. Those very faultlines, shaking everything and everyone around them as they gently rumble before breaking apart.
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