Ulf Kjell Gür "After all, you two have not talked to each other for forty years. Why start now?" "Hrútar" is an Icelandic saga about two brothers - sheep-raiders - weathery and persistent. To a certain extent biblical, similar to Cain and Abel, or Esau and Jacob's fates. "Brothers don't necessarily have to say anything to each other – they can sit in a room and be together and just be completely comfortable with each other." That's pretty much it. "Hrútar" is also a very fine and accurate composition of image, setting and atmosphere. And sounds from Atli Örvarsson.

Reno Rangan Just a week ago I saw 'Fúsi' which was about an overweight person with the mind of a child. And now another excellent Icelandic movie that centres on the livestock farmers. One of the best movie about the farmers I have seen. It is not all about their farms, but the love and dedication towards their work. About the art of raising animals that passed through the generations who never abandoned their ancestral village to look for a better life somewhere else. But what happens when suddenly a great threat pose to their way of life that they all only known. That's what this film talk about.This story is about two brothers Gummi and Kiddi, who have not spoken for decades. They live next door to one another in a remote village raising sheep. When one theirs ram wins a prestigious regional contest, that lead to discover a fear of scrapie epidemic, a disease that might wipe out their local breeds. After this incident, the conflict between the brothers escalates further. So what happens after the entire village lose their business to a viral infection brings a dramatic ending to the story.This is the advantage of watching world cinemas. You will get a chance to learn a different culture and other unfamiliar stuffs. Nowadays Hollywood is about big budget and superhero movies. Small scale films like this are very occasion, but I'm missing nothing through my love to films around the globe.I love realism films, but still this film gives a cinematic experience with the beautiful interior landscapes of Iceland. Most of the film takes place in the winter, but all the important outdoor sequences came prior to that season. Still the second half is the best part of the storytelling. After all Iceland without ice/snow is unimaginable."If we've scrapie in the valley, we're screwed."The story has a small twist in the halfway mark, that you could see it coming. But the third act was so awesome, because the pace picks up and brings the unexpected ending. Yet, I was little disappointed the way it concluded. I like the details, I don't always like understandable phrase in a film's ending. Those things are effective for the movies that going have a sequel. So what I meant is the end should have been a bit more specific about what actually happens. If it is about the brothers, not the livestock, then the theme is slightly misleading with all the developments.I was tempted to rate it close to maximum, like as I said the finale took away the fractions of my 'like' towards this wonderful drama. The lead actor from the 'Virgin Mountain' can be seen in a tiny role in a couple of scenes.I've heard the ram that acted in this called Garpur was credited, but it was not like any special performance. The movie was very slow, but I like this kind of narration when a story demands its own time to bring anything it wanted to tell on its own perfect way. There are scenes with some dark humours, so it is a semi tragicomedy.The initial parts, maybe the first act looks like an ordinary rural narration, but if you learn about the story and its character prior to your watch then you might feel comfortable with the pace. This film was sent to the recently concluded Oscars to represent Iceland, but failed to make into the ultimate round. Forget the American Academy Awards, this is still an excellent movie. I won't hesitate to suggest it to you all, it is a dull start, but you would feel worth watching it in the end.8/10

CineMuseFilms The family drama is an elastic genre label that is used when nothing else fits. It is an odd label for RAMS (2015), an endearing tale of an unconventional family consisting of two estranged brothers and their rams who live on adjacent farms in Iceland. They have not spoken for 40 years, are fiercely competitive with their prize-winning rams, and sometimes communicate via dog-carried notes or bullets through a window. They love their rams like kinfolk, pet them, kiss them and clearly are devoted shepherds. While the outside world buzzes with social and digital media innovation, life goes on for brothers Gummi and Kiddi as it has for generations amidst the harsh natural beauty of rural Iceland. Their fractious but largely peaceful co-existence is shattered when a highly contagious disease is discovered in the flock and local authorities decree that all must be destroyed.The story itself is not the point of RAMS. Rather it is an immersive insight into life on an Icelandic farm told through sensitive cinematography and understated storytelling. The vast space across rugged wind-swept landscapes have a brutal beauty and enter our viewing space with a chill you can feel. Long camera takes and even longer silences are expressions about the brothers lives in an environment untouched by modernity, with quirky Icelandic wit to brighten a muted colour palette of white and grey. The musical score erupts expressively to accentuate moments of humour, sadness and hope, often with just a few single dramatic piano chords. The scenes where beloved stock must be destroyed brought audible sniffles across my cinema. Through adversity, the brothers are forced to rely on each other and in the process renew something that should not have been lost so long ago.As an independent film RAMS is free to roam wherever its directorial and storytelling intentions choose and this results in a refreshingly different movie experience. Many will wonder why it has been so highly lauded because the pace is glacially slow, the actors are more like cameo characters, and some will find the concept of loving animals like family a bit weird. But others will see the primal relationship of shepherd to land and flock, be touched by the love that surfaces from under decades of sibling discord, and enjoy an old fashioned story about farm life in a hostile place. The ending is poignant, ambivalent, and a metaphor for the triumph of love and family.

diggus doggus I will not disagree with the substance of the reviews my fellow unpaid reviewers of IMDb have written; this is in fact, a touching film about stubborn men. I do however dispute that such a film has any place outside an art festival.Rams is the story of two icelandic brothers, Gummi and Kiddi (i kiddi you not), who have not spoke to each other for 40 years; the film makes it plenty clear that they resent each other (for whatever unknown reason), even going as far as one of the two shooting the other's windows out with a shotgun.After a yearly sheep pageant, with Kiddi's ram taking first prize, the jealous Gummi goes to inspect the ram, and he finds it has scrapie, a deadly disease similar to Mad Cow disease.Most of the rest of the film is the community's struggle with the impending loss of their sheep, which is understandable since sheep represent their only reason of living. During this struggle, there are attempts at reconciliation between the two brothers, which finally culminate in a brief ending where human emotion prevails.Right;I find this cookie cutter script to be far below my standard for Un Certain Regard prize material, and even though the film is reasonably well executed, there is not much to make it interesting enough to tie up one and a half hours of runtime. Sadly, it falls victim to the trailer test: cut off the film's ending, attach it to the trailer, and voilà' - you have most of the film's content in 3 minutes.I would not recommend Hrútar (Rams); the bland icelandic vistas are sure to impress the millionaires who preside of the Cannes festival, but are nothing special if you've been outside of the city in these last 30 years. The characters are simple, the plot is minimalistic, with nothing to fill in. If you are looking for a burst of human emotion, you'll have to sit through an entire film of 90 minutes for what you could have gotten from a spoilered review.Not surreal, not touching, not visionary, my final vote for Rams : 5/10