We find
ourselves in 1918 and even from Reykjavik the spewing fire from Katla, the
volcano, is seen, painting the sky day as well as night. Despite natural
disaster, lack of coal and war in the great world outside it, life in the
capital continues as usual. The Icelanders prepare themselves for independence.
Moon
Stone is 16 and lives for the moving pictures shown in the town’s cinema.
Asleep he lives his own dream-cut versions of movies seen, threads of his own
life woven into the films’ fabric. Awake he walks on the social periphery.
The
Spanish flue invades Reykjavik, thousands become sick and more than two hundred
die. The pandemic decimates the city and shatters the safety of a homely daily
life, replacing it is a reality in a darker hue.
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“Mánasteinur”
(Moon Stone) is an exceptional work weaving
disparate worlds – movies, sex, a pandemic and a nation’s struggle for
independence – into a beautiful and coherent story.