An Icelandic Suburb Hides Deep Dysfunction ‘Under the Tree’

In a movie that feeds on the fury of women, Inga (Edda Bjorgvinsdottir), is by far the scariest. A homemaker of late middle age and barely bottled savagery, she dominates Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurdsson’s pitch-black Icelandic farce, “Under the Tree,” with such quiet malevolence you can almost feel its vibrations.

The brilliance of the performance is to render Inga’s actions horrifyingly logical for someone unconstrained by the social contract. A long-ago loss has slowly curdled her humanity; but the immediate focus of her ire is the neighbor’s bodaciously athletic second wife (Selma Bjornsdottir), whose suntan is being thwarted by the branches of Inga’s beautiful old tree and who wants them removed.

“At least she takes care of herself,” mumbles Inga’s husband, Baldvin (a wonderfully wry Sigurdur Sigurjonsson), squinting sidelong at his frowzy spouse before escaping to choir practice. Caught up in the feud is the couple’s disgraced son (Steinthor Hroar Steinthorsson), recently banished to his parents’ by his enraged wife over his enjoyment of a homemade sex tape. Can’t a man have a hobby?

Maintaining an unrelentingly gleeful grip on the film’s tone, Sigurdsson skillfully whips absurdist comedy and chilling tragedy into a froth of surging hostilities. Neither pets nor possessions are spared as his small section of manicured suburbia, soaked in bitter enmity and pearl-gray light, begins to crumble.

Over this suffocating uniformity, the tree looms like a totem of spiritual rebellion, its spreading branches as threatening to the social order as Inga’s unfettered cruelty. By the time a nail gun and chain saw make an appearance, we already know that this is a director who has no intention of wimping out.

—