Elise Joyce White night wedding is a story about love, friendship and nature. Focusing on the loss of love between Jon and Anna (his first wife who is now deceased) and Jon's new love with Þóra. Coming up to his new wedding, Jon is haunted by the memories of his old wife, and finds that life is not all that different with one woman instead of the other.Love is woven through almost every character in this story, but produces radically different results. Naïve, young Þóra is completely blinded buy her love of Jon. She feels it is her duty to "fix" him, viewing him like a rickety house that she needs to restore to tip top shape. I believe she believes that she truly loves him, but will find much the same road ahead of her as his first wife. In the end, Jon is not all Þóra wanted and she is left to deal with the choices she has made. Jon himself struggles with love, but the world-weary man does not seem to have had much to begin with. At the beginning, we are presented with a seemingly loving man and a miscommunication between him and his wife. Jon seems to crave love as much as his wife needs it but seems to be incapable of giving it. We see this when his wife is distraught from hitting a bird and he is unable to give her comfort. After she had frustratingly hung up the phone, He continues to talk to the phone, saying 'dear' and 'sweetheart'. Though he may be putting on a show for the man in his office, it is most likely a show for himself and his ideals of love.There are two characters in this film that put their love of money before their love of people, Sísí and Séra Ólafur. It is not clear how much Sísí loves her husband, but what is clear, is that Sisi loves money. She lives for money and cannot understand those around her who do not do the same. She loves her daughter, and want acceptance from her, but tries to do so by giving her 'gifts' and the feast. This insults her daughter who wants nothing to do with money and who knows her mother cannot possibly understand her love for Jon. Séra Ólafur is entrapped by his love for money as seen by his new bike helmet and his frequent trips to the offering box. Séra seems to have pestered the small community of Flatey by the small continual joke the residences make about the money needed by the church. Séra's love for money shines through when on the day of the wedding, he beseeches god to not, make him do this wedding since he does not believe in it. After finding all the money flying around outside, he seems to have found his belief and goes as far as getting carried out to see to make sure that the couple gets married.Friendship is another major theme that is explored. The friendships between men mostly, since the women in this film all seem a bit unstable or blindly devoted to love. This friendship of the male characters is built up slowly in the film, and comes to a culmination on the white night, where Sjonni, Börkur, and Matthildur (tied there by her infatuation with Börkur) set up a late dinner for Jon. They all have a wonderful time drinking as Lárus shows up to provide Jon with the money to keep Sísí happy. Jon and Lárus have a heart felt conversation in which their friendship and respect for each other can really be seen. Nature is another main theme, specifically explored with Anna (Jon's dead wife). The first introduction the audience gets of Anna is when she is driving through the city looking anxious. This scene is cut with birds (specifically swans) that are flying around the city and landing in ponds. These two separate scenes literally collide when Anna hits a bird that had flown in front of the car. Anna is clearly upset by this, and it seems to be the turning point for her, where she decides to leave the city. While watching this, I viewed birds as Anna's spirit or emotional self. Clearly she cannot survive in the city and therefore must leave to be back to where she was from originally. The birds appear frequently on the island, and at very strategic times. When Þóra talks with Jon about leaving Anna, the birds in the background fly up in a great flock. When Jon and Þóra have sex, the thrushes are noisily disturbed and instantly Anna knows something is very wrong. Anna seems to be much happier and better on the island, connected with what she knows and the ocean, but Jon seems incapable of seeing it. When Anna kills herself, she takes a sinking boat into the ocean going back to nature and what she considers to be the mother of nature. While this film weaves interesting connections between love, friendship, and nature, the main character is extremely hard to identify with. He is ultimately unlovable, which might fit in with his struggle to love, but he has two women that are completely devoted to him. This works with Anna since the audience assumes that at one point he was a better husband from the comments that she makes. But with Þóra this intense infatuation makes her seem stupid and dull. I found the interactions of almost everyone in the story more dynamic and interesting than the relationship between Jon and Þóra. Overall though, it was an entertaining film that was both lighthearted and dark, keeping you glued too it trying to decipher fact from fiction.

rousep-944-647970 White Night Wedding follows the events in the life of Icelandic, ex-professor, Jón on the eve and on the morning of his wedding; his bride is a beautiful, young woman, once his student and 18 years his junior. The mother of his bride-to-be vows to call off the wedding if he will not pay her the funds he promised to ensure her permission to construct a golf course on her property. Meanwhile, throughout his preparations for the ceremony, Jón reflects on fragments of memories from his previous marriage to Anna, an artist who suffered from mental illness. During the course of these two days, he contends with bitter recognitions of his true character and his role in the events that ultimately led to the demise of his first marriage and his first wife's suicide; only the love of his new bride, who maintains a stubborn faith in his goodness, can prevent his attempts at self-destruction. The film skillfully conveys themes of human frailty and redemption, utilizing moments of tragedy and humor. The film begins with the first of many flashbacks Jón has – the shots each yellow, aged hue to show contrast with the present events, which are clear and sharp. He sees Anna.Deeply depressed, due to both her mental condition and the tenuous state of her marriage, Anna had requested that Jón resign from his position as university professor in Reykjavik and move with her to her home, the island of Flatey, hoping they might make a fresh start. The island has only one road and few inhabitants (Wikipedia, "Flatey,Breiðafjörður"). One of the inhabitants is Börkur, who convinces Jón to invest in his plans for a golf course spanning the length of the island. The owners of the guesthouse on the island, a husband and wife,own property on which Börkur hopes to build, so the two men approach them, and Börkur promises his partner will pay them rent for the property until the course is completed. In his business dealings with the couple, Jón encounters their daughter, Þóra, a student from one of his literature classes; their flirtatious interactions are preferable to the ramblings of his manic-depressive wife, and soon, he is spending night after night in Þóra's company. Anna sees the two on a walk and suspects that Jón is falling in love; she begs him to spend his time with her and end his visits to the guesthouse, but he insists he has business to attend to, and she is unable to dissuade him from going.One evening, in the company of the island's priest, whose compassion for Anna's mental condition makes him an attentive neighbor, Anna witnesses Jón making love to Þóra in the grasses just outside their home. Broken by the knowledge that she no longer has her husband's love, Anna rows out to sea in a leaking boat and drowns. These memories flash periodically through Jón's mind, producing deep feelings of guilt and doubt about his upcoming marriage to the young woman for whom he betrayed his wife. His self-hatred grows as he convinces himself of his sole responsibility for his wife's death, and he becomes convinced that his marriage to Þóra will eventually lead her to great unhappiness and, perhaps, a similar fate. He feels he is undeserving of love. These feelings are only reasserted by Þóra's mother, who has waited roughly a year for Jón to pay her the rent she feels she is due; she constantly berates him and her daughter for his negligence, convinced he will never repay (which is entirely true). She threatens to call off the wedding altogether, putting immense pressure on her daughter and unknowingly promising to relieve Jón of the guilt that builds as the wedding approaches. He hopes to escape. His father-in-law, a drunk with disappointed ambitions, comes to Jón's aid, providing him the money necessary to cover the rent his wife demands. However, Jón passes out after a night of drinking with his friends in the yard. When he wakes,the money has been blown away by the wind, though he never seems to reach this realization, possibly hoping he would not have to pay his debt, which would effectively put a stop to the wedding, as his mother-in-law promised. Just before the wedding belatedly begins, Þóra and her father see that Jón is just outside the church in the adjacent cemetery, looking on Anna's grave. The ceremony starts – and abruptly stops, when the groom pulls the bride outdoors to call the wedding off,confessing to her his guilt in Anna's death and attempting to convince her of the impending doom that would await her were they to marry. Distraught, she argues with him; her father soon joins her, and the rest of the congregation files out to watch the drama unfold. He walks to the shore, steps into a leaking canoe, and attempts to end his life as Anna had; but Þóra swims out to him, struggling against the weight of her gown, and desperately assures him that he is good and has her love unconditionally. The priest is carried to where they stand, and with something of exasperation and relief, Jón relents, and the two are married. Jón finds the happiness and redemption in his marriage; but his new wife appears restless, unhappy, and, possibly, unfaithful by the film's conclusion. Human frailty is reaffirmed. Jón represents the human condition – simultaneously fallible and hopeful. He betrays his wife to find redemption in life but finds it instead in his commitment to his new wife. At first, he refuses happiness, punishing himself for the mistakes of his past, his failure to love his wife. What saves him is the love he receives from Þóra. However, it seems he can't escape karma, and at the conclusion of the film, he has, in a sense, filled the role of Anna as the loving spouse, and Þóra appears to be looking for love elsewhere; the irony is both comic and tragic.

sturlaug "White Night Wedding" is about Jon, a middle-aged professor, who is a day away from marrying his second wife, Thora, who is one of his former students and is about half his age. Jon faces multiple problems on the day before his wedding. First he has to deal with soon-to-be mother-in-law, who vehemently opposes this marriage and demands that Jon pay back his debt to her, otherwise she will cancel the wedding. Secondly, he is constantly confronted by the haunting memory of his first wife, Anna. She seems to loom over him like a dark cloud, causing him to second-guess his decision to marry someone so young. And lastly, the inner turmoil of not only Jon but the other characters as well. One of the main themes in this film is time. Director Baltasar Kormakur uses a very unique technique for his portrayal of time. This film is all set in one day, the day before Jon's wedding to Thora, but there are repeated flashbacks to when Jon and Anna first moved to the island. These flashbacks play a significant role in deciphering Jon's anxieties about his second marriage. Throughout the progression of the film, the viewers learn that Jon and Anna's relationship had reached a level of complacency, so they moved to the island of Flatey in order to start over. However, the change of scenery does not help their relationship and Jon starts to develop feelings for Thora. Either from the guilt from cheating on his wife or the constant reminders of his past marriage, Jon begins to reconsider his marriage to Thora. The flashbacks offer the viewer a glimpse into Jon's mind as audience members begin to empathize and become as apprehensive as Jon about the wedding, which is only a few hours away.Love and relationships are very obvious themes in this film. There are three separate relationships being portrayed in this film; Jon's marriage to Anna, as represented in the flashbacks, as well as his engagement to Thora, which is happening in the present, Thora's parent's dysfunctional marriage, and the forbidden relationship between Börkur and Matthildur. The film focuses on primarily on Jon's relationships so I will focus on the other two. Thora's parents have such an odd marriage that it is almost comical. Thora's mom is basically a bully who pushes everyone around in order to get her way. On the off chance that she loses an argument, she reverts to acting like a child by either shouting or crying so that the other person will give in. The audience assumes that Thora's father puts up with his deranged wife because he loves her, yet it is later revealed that that was not always the case, and now Thora believes that her father is too much of a coward to break off his marriage after so many years.The relationship between Börkur and Matthildur is even more strange, mostly because the two of them are the outsiders of the community. Börkur is a greasy man as well as a type of entrepreneur who is helping Jon build a golf course on the island, whereas Matthildur is a superstitious, awkward woman who spends her time and money playing the lottery. On the most part, they are forbidden to be together because Matthildur's mother deems it as such.Lastly, the themes of dreams and aspirations are constantly portrayed on-screen. Anna just wants to create art and have Jon still love her and find her interesting. Thora wants to be with Jon no matter what anyone else says. Thora's mother wants Jon to pay his debt and leave her daughter alone, whereas Thora's father gave up his dream of being an opera singer to live on an island and run a small hotel with his wife. Unlike the other characters, Jon's ambitions seem to change as the film progresses. First, it seems as if he wants to be with Thora, but then he is haunted by the memories of Anna. Then it seems as if Jon wants out of his engagement in order to go back to his old life, but that is impossible since Anna is dead. It is difficult to say whether Jon finds happiness or not. At the end of the film he goes back to teaching, yet his personal life with Thora seems to mirror the complacency he had with Anna. Will things turn out the same, or will Jon get his 'happily ever after'? The viewer never knows.The themes of time, love, and dreams are all present in "White Night Wedding". The theme of time is present not only in the two timelines that are being presented simultaneously of Jon's relationships with Anna and Thora, but also in the fact that time is quickly ticking away as the wedding draws ever more near. The theme of love is present not only between the main characters but also between some of the minor characters as well. And finally, the viewers learn of each character's own hopes and aspirations yet they do not know whether or not they are seen to fruition.

Josh Malay "If your happy for more than ten minutes than you're an idiot." The character Jon Johnson described this philosophical advice to his class during the end of the movie and the quote fits perfectly. Throughout the movie we take up the aspect of love in marriage and like the quote the happiness, love, and commitment was fleeting. The best line in the movie lied in the notion that it is not love or happiness themselves which are most rewarding in life; rather it is the pursuit of these which is the most rewarding. The film, White Night Wedding explores this pursuit which in the process renders a variety of dismal outlooks on life and its potential for true love or happiness; yet for all these dismal outlooks the movie is quite interesting and somewhat hilarious taken as a whole.The premise of the film revolves around the main character Jon Johnson and his relationship to his wife Anna. Both, living together in Reykjavik, are dismally set in a routine of perceptual avoidance of one another – Jon refusing to take phone calls from Anna while teaching and Anna experiencing a worsening of her mental condition. In order to both remedy their marriage and better themselves they decide to move to a small island off Iceland from which Anna was originally from. This is where things began to get a little dicey both morally and technically. Jon having uprooted from his teaching position finds himself at odds with Anna and portrays a feeling of being trapped by Anna's condition and her perpetual wants and needs of him while he portrays that he gets nothing in return. With no work to divide his time from Anna, Jon invests in a nine hole golf course; the point up till now reflecting how relationships can become strained by the needs and desires of both parties especially when the initial honeymoon stage is over. Jon then begins to court and later has a affair with his former student Thora – Anna witnesses the affair and presumable kills herself – leaving Jon to marry Thora and start the cycle over once again.The plot though somewhat unique is an old story in divorce and cheating scenarios in which one member of the marriage (Jon) feels that he is sacrificing his life and work for Anna and her condition, while Anna feels that Jon has become increasingly distant and no longer loves her. This clash is culminated after Anna witnesses Jon having intercourse with Thora, Anna dumps her medication and proceeds to drag seaweed into the house and demands that Jon makes love to her; Jon, presumably more shocked by her actions and behavior declines and thus Anna appears to sail out to see to end her suffering. Though much quicker than a divorce, the act leaves Jon in the arms of Thora who vows that she will help him recover himself if it's the last thing she does, however, in the end the two – married – appear to be in the same place as Anna and Jon were at the beginning of the film. The implication of love and happiness being that it is found only in the chase and never lasts beyond that time.The question of marriage as an institution of benefit is only half the question presented within this film, the broader question and concern questioning whether happiness and love can even be found in life in a permanent means. Whether looking at Thora's parents and their lost dreams – her father wanting to be a famous opera singer – or Anna and Jon's relationship marriage as an institution seems to be a compromise which leaves both parties disappointed with one another and at odds than promising any form of happiness or love. This is one of the most dismal aspects of the film, yet even worse is the notion that love and happiness in anyone's life is ultimately fleeting. The film ends with the professor explaining this philosophical notion to his class, yet it is up to debate whether he has learned his own lesson. The question of which brings us to the final thought on this film, is someone morally obligated to leave a relationship which they are unhappy within? With the perception from the film being that happiness and love are fleeting fancies of pursuit rather than obtainable goals it would appear that the answer to this question is no. However, the film in Thora's persistence that she would recapture Jon's life if it was the last thing she did and Thora's father's perpetual longing to be an opera singer the question remains. To better the life of another and to better one owns life seem to be the two sides of this coin. Whether for better or for worse we as a species and as portrayed in this film seemed destined to fall in love and be happy in the process, yet this love and happiness is ultimately our curse as they are fleeting with time.