MOVIE REVIEW : Tristan, Isolde Theme in a Savage ‘Raven’

In “Shadow of the Raven” (Fine Arts), director Hrafn Gunnlaugsson has set the legend of Tristan and Isolde in 11th-Century Iceland, a literary transplant no less ambitious than Akira Kurosawa’s recasting of “King Lear” in feudal Japan in “Ran.” But Gunnlaugsson is no Kurosawa and “Shadow of a Raven” is not a shadow of “Ran.”

Trouble starts in a settlement along the ruggedly beautiful Icelandic coast when a group of Viking warriors, their ship fog-bound, arrive with a huge dead whale, having been guided there by a raven. Whoever can successfully lay claim to the whale automatically becomes the richest, most powerful individual in Iceland.

Reluctantly drawn into the competition is the Christian Trausti (Reinr Brynolfsson), who has won the fierce enmity of the tempestuous, tousle-haired pagan Isold (Tinna Gunnlaugsdottir) because she mistakenly believes he has killed her father. But Trausti and Isold have this love-hate thing, so they carry on like Gregory Peck and Jennifer Jones in “Duel in the Sun.”

Virtually every man and woman carries on like the fiercest of barbarians. It’s a wonder that anyone is left alive in the rather small community after revenge has finally run its savage course--and frankly, it’s very hard to care one way or another.