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| Thorvaldur Kristjansson and Hera Hilmar in A Letter From Helga |
In a small community at the tip of a remote Icelandic fjord, two farmers who are already married fall in love, turning both their lives upside down. This is the story told in A Letter From Helga, but it’s far more than just a romance, with complex characters and an underlying theme of frustration with the smallness of their world. Thorvaldur Kristjansson stars as the hero, Bjarni, whose passion for the title character is matched by his inability to hold onto her as he struggles with the weight of prior responsibilities. Thorvaldur was thrilled that the film was selected to screen at the Glasgow Film Festival, an happy to meet up for a chat about it whilst the festival was underway. I began by asking him if he was already familiar with the Bergsveinn Birgisson novel on which it’s based when he was approached by the producers.
“Yes, I was familiar with the book and the writer,” he says. “I’m a really, really a big fan of the book, I think it's incredibly well written by him. And for me to have that book as a guide document for my character creation was was also very, very, very good. You know, to begin with when they approached me about this film and told me they were going to make a film out of this book, I was a little bit sceptical because so much of the magic is in the words and how he describes things, how much control he has with the language. So it was like a journal, this farmer explaining back in the days, his feelings and so forth. How can you make a film out of that? And eventually, of course, the author himself and Ottó [Geir Borg] did a great script. They took the main parts out of the novel and were able to make it work.”
In may ways, he was able to connect with the character of Bjarni from the start, he says.
“I think I really relate to certain aspects. And, you know, I think Icelanders do as well, when it comes to his connection with nature, for example, and how important your land is to you. I can connect to that. And his feelings as well, in some ways. Hopefully the audience do as well.”
People outside of Iceland might be surprised to see a farmer in that era with a passion for books, but Iceland has a really strong, centuries old literary tradition. I ask him what he though drew Bjarni to the book group through which he and Helga (Hera Hilmar) connect.
“I think it was for him...” He pauses. “I imagine that for somebody that is so connected to what he does in the moment, with nature, being able to go somewhere in your imagination is very important – for people back in the days, especially, when you weren't able to jump on the next plane to go somewhere, and you only had a horse to travel from A to B, and it took more time. And so I think for him, getting to read the books and discuss them with other people - you know, not the sheep - and share ideas and maybe fall in love, that's the most important thing.”
There’s a lovely moment in the book group when Bjarni and Helga realise that they’ve interpreted a passage in very different ways, and it speaks to the problems in their relationship which will lead to her departure.
“Exactly, exactly,” He says. “Why doesn’t he just go with her, and all that? But I think that was the challenge, to really try to understand that. Why is that? Why stay? What keeps you there? Trying to understand that was a lot of the work I did for this role. I think he stayed because he had responsibilities towards his countryside. He has obligations to the generations that came before him to still be there, and also it’s part of his identity, the land and this role as as as an important figure in this particular place. And also towards his wife as well, who sacrificed for herself to be there – and knowing what she had been been through as well. And so it wasn’t an easy situation for him, too. But I think that when it comes to how you read into it, she feels love and I think he does as well, somewhere inside.”
Anita Briem is excellent as the wife, Unnur, and I ask how they worked together to develop the chemistry which makes their relationship so convincing.
“Thank you,” he says modestly. “Well, we discussed the past, you know, because that's a part of the struggle right now, but there must have been something there. If you compare the film to the novel, the part of the wife in the novel isn't laid out in such as a good way as in the film. It was important to do that in the film just for the audience to understand the difficulties for both of them. We discussed that this sometimes happens with people in life. I mean, their plan was to settle down there and have kids, to live this normal life in the countryside. They were probably in love, maybe like this passionate love to begin with, as it often is at the beginning, and then suddenly things don't work out. And then either people decide to work on it together, or people just grow away from each other.
“I think that's what happened with them. They weren't able to speak, and I think also, back in the day particularly – I didn't live during that time, but I'm not sure if people were really discussing their emotions or discussing their struggles in an articulate way. I don't think so. So therefore I think they just drifted away from each other, instead of really trying to solve it together.”
I ask him if he did much research on the early 1940s, when the film is set, and he nods.
“I did. I spoke with farmers who were familiar with that time period. I did some reading on it. And also, it's amazing what your imagination can do when you just see pictures. Pictures can say more than a million words sometimes. And so I just looked at pictures from the time period, I spoke with people that came from that location that are familiar with that time period. I also just read the book a couple of times because I think it gave a good insight into it as well.”
There are scenes in which he has to handle farm animals, which takes quite a bit of physical skill.
“I did a film called The Swan that came out in 2017. There I played a farmhand, so I have gone through the experience. I had never worked on a farm as a man or child so I had to go through the experience for that film, where I worked with cows. I went to a farm and I worked with farmers for some time. For this role, particularly, I had to get acquainted with how it is to work with sheep. And, you know, it varies. I mean, the modern technology on a farm today is so different from a farm back in the days, like what they had to do. So I really had to get acquainted with how they managed when they didn't have any technical equipment to help them.
I had to do some digging on that, like how you hold the sheep, how you how you touch it to see where the meat is, what are the most important parts, how can you judge between a good and a bad ram and so forth. And what do you do? What is the daily routine and so forth?”
He’s been acting since he was ten, he explains, so he has well established techniques for dealing with the kind of intense emotional work involved in this film.
“You're always putting yourself out there, and you're fading in and out. I use a specific technique for this film, and I did some proper work for it. I did some Michael Chekov work, so it was a lot of work with the imagination. Basically, I played a lot with images. Throughout the process with the script I had mapped out for myself how I would imagine to approach things, and then I just allowed myself to be in the moment. And what was so good about this project particularly is that is it this project is that a lot of it was shot in the countryside. This meant that you didn't go home, you were there like the whole time. So that was very helpful when it came to being in the concentration mode, so it didn't get interrupted in that way. So I could really be like in this big Chekhovian bubble the whole time, which was really, really good.”
I mention that I first came across him when was in Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre, and he smiles. Did he ever see himself being in this kind of work back then, or when he was a child actor?
“No, I didn't. When I was a child, I believed everything was possible, basically that one day I could have the opportunity of being in films and playing roles that were important and had some depth to them, but maybe then I didn't have the mental capability or emotional like depth to really know what that was. But always I had this image of hopefully, in the future, being able to get the opportunity to be in films. And being in a leading role like this.”
Is this going to change what he aims for going forwards.
He thinks for a moment. “I have done leads before, but I think that this role, particularly now – I've often been typecast in some ways, but I think that this particular role has given me the opportunity to do more. I think also for myself, I have more depth now. I think I'm more mature than I was, therefore I'm more able to portray people, and so I think I’m at a very interesting time in my career, and I really hope I get the opportunity to take on more roles like this in the future.”
