I'm not a huge follower of Icelandic cinema. And this one isn't enough to change that.

This is the first movie from director Dagur Kari, and is flawed by a fundamental error in casting -- his character Noi, an albino, simply looks for most of the time too old to be credible.

Noi, played by Tomas Lemarquis, is meant to be just 17 years of age. He's alienated from his surroundings. Too bright for the low ceiling of opportunity the landscape and his school both offer. But Tomas Lemarquis looks most of the time more like 22 years of age. It's hard to empathise with his plight.

In better hands, this would appear to be some plight. The movie is set in an isolated community in one of the harshest environments in the world -- bleak and snow-swept, with Noi's town sited uneasily below a giant rocky outcrop.

Noi wants to rebel against life, against school, against his entire surroundings -- but it's hard for Noi to rebel in such an isolated town where everyone knows him so well. Hold up the bank? The manager will just come out from his office, take the shotgun from him and throw him out the door, telling him not to be so stupid. This is a town without surprises, which won't even allow Noi to break-out.

It's a slow and silent movie, which moves along with only minimal internal or external drama -- until close to the end, that is, when Noi's life is altered irrecovably. There's lots of boredom here, offered in a truly Icelandic way - and ironically, that's the saving-grace of an otherwise undistinguished movie. It does give a genuine feeling of what life in such a community must be like. Free, yet in prison. Quite chilling stuff, really.

The picture quality is quite respectable, even though this is a non-anamorphic transfer. There's some shimmering/aliasing effects in some scenes, particularly in some of the more extreme snow-bright outdoor scenes, but these are transitory and the image, and colour values, are usually good.

The sound, what there is of it, is clear. There are a lot of silences........

There are no extras of any kind, not even a chapter-menu. Icelandic speakers should not that the subitles are burnt-on and can't be toggled off.