Review: Björk stars in Nietzchka Keene’s rarely seen film ‘The Juniper Tree’

Björk in the 1989 film “The Juniper Tree.” (Arbelos Films)

BY ROBERT ABELE

APRIL 16, 2019 12:27 PM PT

At the very least, watching Nietzchka Keene’s haunting Icelandic fairy tale “The Juniper Tree” can cause your sense of time to fall away. A black-and-white movie filmed in 1986, it recalls both the indie wilderness vibe of its time, yet also the monochromatic severity of early Bergman and Tarkovsky.

Heading the cast is an instantly recognizable Björk, prior to her becoming a global music phenomenon, which creates its own recontextualized aura around her. It’s also adapted from a Grimm fairy tale, yet infused with a modern feminist sensibility, and while it’s a ghostly affair with magical touches, it’s shot through with a hard-bitten realism about medieval life.

Keene didn’t complete her micro-budgeted debut feature, which she wrote, directed and edited, until 1989, after which it made the festival circuit — including the Sundance Film Festival in 1991 — but only received one Los Angeles showing, in 1990 at UCLA, Keene’s MFA alma mater. Now, 15 years after her death, in her starkly enchanting film has been given a 4K restoration, and another single-viewing chance, this time at the American Cinematheque. The opportunity is a welcome one, because Keene’s atmospheric gem deserves renewed appreciation and fresh discovery.

After finding a dead woman floating in a creek, stoned and drowned as a witch, waif-like Margit (Björk) and her pragmatic older sister Katla (Bryndis Petra Bragadóttir) must flee to avoid the same fate, which also claimed their mother. Stern widowed farmer Johan (Valdimar Örn Flygenring) takes them in, but his suspicious son Jonas (Geirlaug Sunna Þormar) — who visits his mother’s grave every day, like a dutiful son trying not to be forgotten — sees in Katla a family interloper practicing the dark arts.

He’s not entirely wrong, in that Katla believes in sorcery, but she’s also a persecuted woman in a harsh time trying to secure protection for herself and Margit — her seduction spells are born out of a desire to bind Johan to her, which she comes to realize would best be achieved with a pregnancy.

Jonas tries to turn his father against Katla, even though he isn’t so fearful of kindly, concerned Margit, and the young pair bond over their respective grief. But when Margit begins seeing visions of her dead mother — a silent, beckoning figure with a black hole in her chest — Jonas’ dislocation intensifies, until he feels the need to confront his stepmother at the most unwise of moments.

Those familiar with the original fairy tale will know where this is headed. Keene’s retelling preserves certain morbid details but alters others, so that a story steeped in misogyny and the supernatural can still resonate as a warning of the damaging ripple effects when desperation, displacement and mourning collide.

Stylistically, the movie is a stroll of otherworldly delirium, like a hybrid of Dreyer’s asceticism and the the chillier reveries in “The Night of the Hunter.” There’s austere beauty in cinematographer Randy Sellars’ rendering of the craggy, unforgiving Icelandic landscape, and for the memorable hypnagogic passages that occasionally fold over Margit’s reality, Keene enlisted acclaimed avant-garde director and optical effects guru Pat O’Neill.

Folk tales are how cultures make sense of the world, of how people changed and fates were secured. Keene fully grasps this, which is why she often has Björk’s Margit turning the details of the story she’s observing around her — hovering birds, a tended grave, her own loss, a boy’s worry, a woman’s desire — into a fanciful yarn she’s constantly spinning and revising. And Björk’s turn is a delicate, inviting thing, that innocent croak of a voice like some bridge between the mystical appeal of fairy tales and the cold truth about what human beings do when reason leaves them.

Keene made only a couple of films in her abbreviated life, but “The Juniper Tree” is absorbing enough to make one rue there weren’t more. But we can at least note for the history books that for all the hype Lars von Trier received for casting Björk in 2000’s “Dancer in the Dark,” a female filmmaker recognized her eccentric on-screen blend of mystery, humanity and guilelessness first.

The Juniper Tree (Nietzchka Keene, 1990) Cast: Björk, Bryndis Petra Bragadóttir, Valdimar Örn Flygenring, Guðrún Gisladóttir, Geirlaug Sunna Þormar. Screenplay: Nietzchka Keene. Cinematography: Randolph Sellars. Art direction: Dominque Polain. Film editing: Nietzchka Keene. Music: Larry Lipkis. Nietzchka Keene's The Juniper Tree, the first feature in her sadly brief career, reminded me of films by Bergman and Dreyer, largely because of its bleakly beautiful, isolated, apparently medieval setting. It has also been called "feminist," a label often pasted on films directed by women, though I think it transcends labels and influences, working its effect largely through the strength of some well-imagined characters. The sisters Margit and Katla have been left homeless after their mother was burned as a witch, so Katla, the elder, casts a spell on Jóhann, a handsome young widower, and the sisters go to live with him.  Jóhann's young son, Jónas, resents his stepmother and lovingly tends his mother's grave, a devotion that only feeds his animosity toward Katla, though he makes friends with Margit, who has visions of her own late mother. Eventually, as in all such tales, tensions, fed by Katla's witchcraft, Margit's visions, and Jónas's resentment, result in calamity. It's a simple story with roots in a tale from the Brothers Grimm, given potency by good performances, particularly Björk as the pivotal character of Margit, by a strong eroticism in the relationship of Katla and Jóhann, and by the exploration of the Icelandic setting in Randolph Sellars's handsome black-and-white cinematography.

The Juniper Tree (Nietzchka Keene, 1990)

The Juniper Tree

directed by Nietzchka Keene, 1990

Today's review on MyOldAddiction.com, The Juniper Tree by #NietzchkaKeene, "its images will last in your mind much longer than its narrative content" NIETZCHKA KEENE Bil's rating (out of 5): BBB .  Iceland, 1990.   Screenplay by Nietzchka Keene.   

"Quand Nous Etions Sorcières" de Nietzchka Keene (1989) - inspiré du conte le "Genévrier" des frères Grimm (1812) - avec Björk, Bryndis Petra Bragadóttir, Valdimar Örn Flygenring et le petit Geirlaug Sunna Þormar, mai 2019.

The Juniper Tree - Nietzchka Keene (1990)

"The Juniper Tree is a 1990 Icelandic black-and-white medieval fantasy drama film directed and written by Nietzchka Keene. Based on the fairy tale 'The Juniper Tree' collected by the Brothers Grimm, it stars a small cast of five actors: Björk, Bryndis Petra Bragadóttir, Guðrún Gísladóttir, Valdimar Örn Flygenring and Geirlaug Sunna Þormar. The Juniper Tree is set in Iceland and portrays the story of two sisters, Margit (Björk Guðmundsdóttir) and her elder sister Katla (Bryndis Petra Bragadóttir), who escape their home after their mother (Guðrún Gísladóttir) is stoned and burned for witchcraft.  They go where no one knows them, and find Jóhann (Valdimar Örn   Flygenring), a young widower who has a son called Jónas (Geirlaug Sunna Þormar). Katla uses magical powers to seduce Jóhann and they start   living together. Margit and Jónas become friends. However, Jónas does   not accept Katla as his stepmother and tries to convince his father to   leave her. ..."

Wikipedia

W - The Juniper Tree (fairy tale)

W - Nietzchka Keene

NY Times - ‘The Juniper Tree’ Review: A Young Björk Enchants in Her Film Acting Debut (Video)

The Juniper Tree - Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

YouTube: The Juniper Tree | Trailer, Interview with Nietzchka Keene the writer-director of "The Juniper Tree"

New Trailer for Restored Re-Release of 'The Juniper Tree' with Björk

"Out from here, away be gone." Arbelos Films has debuted a new trailer for the restored re-release of The Juniper Tree, a surrealist film from 1990 filmed in Iceland and made by filmmaker Nietzchka Keene. The film stars a young Björk (25 years old at the time) as a woman who flees her homeland in Iceland after her mother is killed for practicing witchcraft. Her older sister casts a spell on a farmer which makes him fall in love with her, but his son sees through her tricky plan. The full cast includes Bryndis Petra Bragadóttir, Valdimar Örn Flygenring, Guðrún Gísladóttir, and Geirlaug Sunna Þormar. This 4K restoration is from the Wisconsin Center for Film & Theater Research and The Film Foundation, with funding from the George Lucas Family Foundation. The Juniper Tree is described as a "potent allegory for misogyny and its attendant tragedies, [and] a major rediscovery for art house audiences." It seems very dreamlike and poetic. ›››

Continue Reading New Trailer for Restored Re-Release of 'The Juniper Tree' with Björk

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Films watched in 2020.

352: The Juniper Tree (Nietzchka Keene, 1990)

★★★★★★☆☆☆☆

“We will go where no one knows us and find a place to stay.”