The Juniper Tree

Singer Björk, here quite likable in her role as an elfin teenager in a reworked Brothers Grimm tale, is only one of several good reasons to catch this film. Shot in Iceland, the story, set in the Middle-Ages, is about two sisters, Katla and Margit who leave their village after their mother is burned as a witch. The older one marries a widower whose young son hates his stepmother' s strange ways. The boy befriends the younger sister, who is visited by visions of her own dead mother. In the Grimm tradition, family tensions give way to horrific acts, and emotional complexities are reduced to a kind of thrillingly crude drama.