Metalhead

Metalhead (Málmhaus, 2013) is an Icelandic drama about grief and loud guitars that you can watch online on iFILM. Director Ragnar Bragason sets it on a remote farm in 1990s Iceland, inside a family that never found its way past the death of its eldest son.

Each of them retreats differently after the tragedy. The mother goes silent, the father acts as if nothing happened, and daughter Hera spends her nights in her dead brother's room, surrounded by the posters of his rock idols. Then she picks up his forgotten guitar, and the household hush gives way to heavy riffs. She shaves her head, pulls on a leather jacket, and turns into the metalhead of the title, picking a fight with the whole parish. Þorbjörg Helga Þorgilsdóttir carries the lead, with Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson alongside her.

This is quiet, deeply Nordic cinema about using music to scream where words won't do. It's for anyone who likes festival dramas with a raw nerve and a soundtrack of genuine metal. Stream Metalhead (2013) online on iFILM.