The eighth-century Scandanavian epic poem Beowulf, in all its Old English glory, has long been a chore and privilege for Honors English students the world over. The tale of the titular warrior who slays the bone-crushing monster Grendel, Grendel's mother, and eventually a dragon, too, for good measure, has been adapted with updated dialogue (now in modern English, complete with the F-bomb), some judicious trimming by focusing on the first part of the epic, and by blurring the lines of good and evil the poem draws starkly—this Grendel is less monster than a troll with a grudge, and this Beowulf is a hero with a soul. "Shot entirely in the outback of Iceland, it's a gallery of hauntingly beautiful locations, and director Sturla Gunnarsson skillfully uses its bleak otherworldliness to distance us from anything familiar and evoke a lost heroic age." (Seattle Post-Intelligencier) more at beowulfandgrendel.com
2006, color, 1 hour 42 minutes, Iceland
