Under the Glacier (Kristnihald undir Jökli)

UMBI FILMS in co-operation with MAGMA FILM presents.

UNDER THE GLACIER

Based on the Novel by.

Scriptwriter.

Starring.

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Greetings! May peace be with you!

This way please!

Please lock the church!

Gentlemen, I have called this meeting to discuss a new crisis.

The Curia wishes to have first on the agenda

religion in the third world and the Marxist priest.

Last time we debated birth control, it's my turn this time.

The Church and the anti-Marxist priest.

The problem we should be concerned with

is God as a consumer product on television.

My friends! What do we fear most?

- Heresy! - Paganism!

The new evangelism!

Like Pandora, I may have opened the box on all four.

In all innocence I thought to investigate a local matter.

These are the notebooks and recorded tapes of my emissary.

This is a faithful record of my mission to Snæfells glacier.

It all began when I was summoned to the Bishop.

I want you to go to Snæfells and investigate for me.

What's to be investigated?

Christianity at Glacier.

How am I expected to do that I have no experience.

Say little and do less. Observe. Talk about the weather.

Don't be personal. No matter what credos they come up with,

do not convert them.

Do I record what I think?

No, we do not care what you think.

And if they tell me lies?

Just as long as they don't lie through you.

Don't start lying yourself.

How do I start?

Start with Pastor Jon Primus himself. Is the man crazy

or more brilliant than the rest of us?

Some say he's lost his faith. What I want to know is...

Why doesn't the man keep the church in good repair?

Why doesn't he hold divine service?

Why doesn't he baptise the children and bury the dead?

Why hasn't he drawn his stipend for twenty years?

Is he a better believer than all of us?

And what does the parish say?

I've written him fifty letters and never a word in reply.

But where's the crime?

There's a story about a corpse being buried on the glacier.

What corpse?

He's been married for thirty years,

but it's known his wife never lived with him.

Is Christianity being tampered with at Snæfells?

Oh look, a tern!

The skua is a sinister bird. In calm weather

it flies like a piece of paper blowing in a wind...

Is it the Bishop?

No, I'm his emissary.

Same thing. We had a telegram about you.

Come in. The Pastor's not at home.

Please take a seat.

Perhaps the Pastor has gone to bed?

I don't know about that.

Excuse me, but aren't you his wife?

I've never been considered so.

Did you bake all these cakes?

Who else indeed! That's why they call me Pestle-Thora.

Excuse me, is the Pastor's wife not at home?

I don't know. Did the Bishop want to talk to her?

No, I was just asking.

One could try asking down at Netherlane Farm.

It's haunted, or so they say.

Then you are the house-keeper?

I'm just here, that's all.

I come from the mountain nearby.

Anything unusual happen around here?

Nothing ever happens to anyone.

No one ever sees anything.

Never seen anything yourself?

Yes, something happened to me once. I saw something.

What happened?

I couldn't tell anyone.

I was no more than a girl at the time,

but I remember it as if it happened yesterday.

I was sent on an errand.

Instead of taking the main road.

I followed the path across the glacier.

Suddenly I saw a brown ram with straight horns.

It was watching me. There was no other animal in sight.

I've never been so frightened in all my life,

completely speechless and helpless.

Frightened of a brown ram?

It was glowing.

It just stared at me. I felt I was turning to stone.

In the end I had the sense, though, to run away.

A supernatural ram? I don't know!

Did anyone ever get to the bottom of this?

No, no one ever found out what happened.

No, thank you!

PRIMUS STOVES REPAIRED HERE

- Good morning! - Good morning!

Are you Tumi Jonsen, head of the Parish Committee?

So they say.

I'm looking for Pastor Jon. Got a horse to shoe?

No, I've a letter from the Bishop. He sends his greetings

and asks about your rheumatism.

That's just like him. He's a good soul.

Are you a man of the cloth?

No, I'm just an errand boy really.

It's nice to be modest, my boy.

I wonder why the Pastor isn't at home?

I think he's somewhere shoeing a herd of horses.

- Good morning! - Good morning!

Come inside and have some coffee.

The women say it's time to start scrubbing.

Mrs. Fina Jonsen, widow, from Reykjavík!

Pleased to meet you!

This young man comes from the Bishop.

The coffee's almost ready.

The Bishop wants a report.

May I ask you a few questions?

Fire away my boy,

but there aren't many bigger fools in these parts.

Is it true that Pastor Jon sometimes forgets his duties?

Like burying the dead?

It's true he is not very quick burying the dead.

But they get there in the end.

Doesn't the Parish mind?

Nobody complains, but then you see,

he's the only man around here who can shoe a horse properly.

And fix primuses!

And fix the electricity!

You said it.

How is he on doctrine?

Doctrines are for entertainment.

Pastor Jon never preached much. Even less now.

The wild ponies and the birds know best

what kind of man he is.

All creatures follow Pastor Jon.

Even the ravens.

Many unchristened children in the parish?

I've never counted them, but the children seem to be fine.

Was a coffin buried in the glacier a few years ago?

How should we know? Ask the Angler. He's back.

The Angler?

The one who caught a forty pound salmon and lost it.

You bishops don't seem to know anybody!

There was never such a man or such a fish!

Or his women! He has wives all around the world.

But the most fantastic one, he caught here at Glacier.

- A woman or a fish? - A woman!

- What woman? - Ask Pastor Jon.

The Angler built a summer house

practically under Pastor Jon's nose.

No sooner was it built than the woman disappeared.

Dead, if you please! Everyone knows that.

But the salmon came back.

Excuse me, I'm slightly confused.

I'll explain. The first settler in this district was from Ireland,

she was a mystery woman. Her name was Thorgunna.

She was magnificent and tall. She was a witch.

She killed nineteen men and raised them all from the dead.

When she died she was carried to a remote cemetery.

Her pall-bearers arrived hungry and tired.

They fell asleep without any food or drink.

During the night the woman's huge corpse rose to its feet,

Went into the kitchen and baked bread in the

Irish style for her pallbearers.

Was this woman an ancestor of the pastor's wife?

Is this a true story?

I believe the Icelandic sagas more or less.

However, it may have been flatbread

and not actually Irish bread.

Is it true that Pastor Jon got married

but his wife ran away and he never divorced her?

Ask Pastor Jon!

What poetry is that? It's a nursery rhyme.

All to do with Ursula the English.

Ursula the English?

It's said of Ursula the English and Thorgunna

that they never wash.

Don't they smell then?

Always clean. Never eat but are always full,

never sleep, but are never tired.

Never read a book but are wiser than scholars,

but strangest of all. They never age!

They just disappear one day like the birds.

They've been known to make rather poor wives,

despite good flesh.

Those who know say they have beautiful navels.

I've set down exactly what happened on my way home.

Perhaps it was alcohol or an overstimulated imagination,

brought on by the stories of Tumi and his womenfolk.

Reality has a way of slipping off the edge here at Snæfells.