My Film Festival began with Valdis Oskarsdottir's Country Wedding on Thursday evening. The premise - a young Icelandic couple spend a day travelling to their rural wedding with oddball family/friends in tow - seemed a good source of outlandish hijinks. Hijinks are plentiful though they are more predictable than you would hope for (the age-deluded grandmother who keeps wandering off, the emotional bride who breaks down regularly at the slightest upset). Near the end of the film, proceedings threaten to go off the rails of reality into comic melodrama. That said, the characters and their plights grow on you as the story progresses and the circumstances of the film's development demand lenient judgment. At the Q&A, the director and several charming cast members revealed that the film was largely improvised. Rehearsals of character backstories had been conducted pre-shoot but none of the scenes on screen were rehearsed. To top off that laudable feat, Oskarsdottir shot the whole thing in seven days. Seven! After hearing that information, I mentally revised my middling reaction upward. You've got to give credit where it's due.
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