White Night Wedding follows the life of Jón during the day leading up to his second marriage. Jón is an ex-professor living on the small island of Flatey, Iceland. The opening scene sets up the film's light attitude, but also tells us of Jón's controversial past. In the beginning of the film, we learn that his ex-wife, stricken with manic-depression, convinced him to leave his job as a professor in Reykjavik and move to Flatey, where she is from. We later learn that once they moved to Flatey, Jón became close to a girl that was his student at university. As Anna, Jón's first wife, realizes that she is losing her husband, her mental state becomes worse and worse. The director, Baltasar Kormákur, uses Jón's flashbacks to his previous marriage to explain to the viewers what happened in Jón's first marriage and what led him to marry Þóra. These flashbacks, tinted with different lighting to differentiate them from the present, only tell the viewer a small part of the story at a time, so they are unaware of many important details until the end. This leaves some excitement and keeps the viewer watching. While I liked the excitement, sometimes the flashbacks were not clearly a flashback and confused me. Kormákur sometimes used a specific cut style to signify that the upcoming scene was a flashback, but other times the film would jump cut to the scene without telling the viewer if it was in the present or in the past. This was especially confusing at the beginning of the movie, but once I was used to the style of the film, I became more prepared for scenes to be set in the past.One of the main themes we can see in the film is money. Iceland's economic state is not very strong, so money is a common theme in Icelandic films. When Jón and Anna move to Flatey, Jón meets Börkur, who dreams of building a golf course on the island. Börkur convinces Jón to invest in this golf course, including cutting a deal with the family of his future bride, Þóra. Jón rents land from Þóra's family, but does not pay for it. This deal is central to the plot, as Þóra's mother continuously nags Jón and Þóra throughout the film, threatening to call off the wedding if he does not pay her. Þóra's father is frustrated by his wife's obsession with the money and secretly gives money to Jón to be used to pay for the land. However, Jón passes out outside and the money blows away to be found by the island's priest. The economy of Iceland clearly impacts the lives of those on the island and leads Þóra's mother to worry more about money than her own daughter's wedding.While dealing with his fiancé's mother and her obsession with his debt, Jón is also feeling more and more guilty about the events leading up to his second marriage. We learn from a few flashbacks that Jón cheated on Anna with Þóra and when Anna caught them, she rowed a leaky boat into the sea and drowned herself. As we get closer to the wedding, Jón becomes increasingly quiet and distant from Þóra. At the wedding, Jón asks Þóra to step outside with him and calls off the wedding, telling her that he does not want to drive her to madness and death as he believes he did to Anna. She begs him to stop thinking that way, saying that she will make him happy and help him until the day she dies. During this argument, the entire wedding party comes out to watch the unfolding drama. Jón runs to the sea and gets in the same leaky boat that Anna used to drown herself. He prepares to kill himself the same way until Þóra and the rest of the wedding party make it to the sea. Þóra swims to him and they decide to get married in the sea. The priest is carried out and they take their vows, seemingly ending the movie on a positive note. Although Jón has had a hard time with his marriages and is unsure about marrying again, Þóra seems to have saved him and made him happy. However, the final scene tells us that that is not how the marriage works out. Ironically, Jón becomes the satisfied married man, while Þóra seems to become the one sneaking off and looking for something better, as Jón did with Anna. As cheating was a central theme in the plot of the film, this seems to be a sort of poetic justice for what Jón did to Anna and tells the viewers that cheating is usually not the best way to start out a relationship.

"White Night Wedding" is about Jon, a middle-aged professor, who is a day away from marrying his second wife, Thora, who is one of his former students and is about half his age. Jon faces multiple problems on the day before his wedding. First he has to deal with soon-to-be mother-in-law, who vehemently opposes this marriage and demands that Jon pay back his debt to her, otherwise she will cancel the wedding. Secondly, he is constantly confronted by the haunting memory of his first wife, Anna. She seems to loom over him like a dark cloud, causing him to second-guess his decision to marry someone so young. And lastly, the inner turmoil of not only Jon but the other characters as well. One of the main themes in this film is time. Director Baltasar Kormakur uses a very unique technique for his portrayal of time. This film is all set in one day, the day before Jon's wedding to Thora, but there are repeated flashbacks to when Jon and Anna first moved to the island. These flashbacks play a significant role in deciphering Jon's anxieties about his second marriage. Throughout the progression of the film, the viewers learn that Jon and Anna's relationship had reached a level of complacency, so they moved to the island of Flatey in order to start over. However, the change of scenery does not help their relationship and Jon starts to develop feelings for Thora. Either from the guilt from cheating on his wife or the constant reminders of his past marriage, Jon begins to reconsider his marriage to Thora. The flashbacks offer the viewer a glimpse into Jon's mind as audience members begin to empathize and become as apprehensive as Jon about the wedding, which is only a few hours away.Love and relationships are very obvious themes in this film. There are three separate relationships being portrayed in this film; Jon's marriage to Anna, as represented in the flashbacks, as well as his engagement to Thora, which is happening in the present, Thora's parent's dysfunctional marriage, and the forbidden relationship between Börkur and Matthildur. The film focuses on primarily on Jon's relationships so I will focus on the other two. Thora's parents have such an odd marriage that it is almost comical. Thora's mom is basically a bully who pushes everyone around in order to get her way. On the off chance that she loses an argument, she reverts to acting like a child by either shouting or crying so that the other person will give in. The audience assumes that Thora's father puts up with his deranged wife because he loves her, yet it is later revealed that that was not always the case, and now Thora believes that her father is too much of a coward to break off his marriage after so many years.The relationship between Börkur and Matthildur is even more strange, mostly because the two of them are the outsiders of the community. Börkur is a greasy man as well as a type of entrepreneur who is helping Jon build a golf course on the island, whereas Matthildur is a superstitious, awkward woman who spends her time and money playing the lottery. On the most part, they are forbidden to be together because Matthildur's mother deems it as such.Lastly, the themes of dreams and aspirations are constantly portrayed on-screen. Anna just wants to create art and have Jon still love her and find her interesting. Thora wants to be with Jon no matter what anyone else says. Thora's mother wants Jon to pay his debt and leave her daughter alone, whereas Thora's father gave up his dream of being an opera singer to live on an island and run a small hotel with his wife. Unlike the other characters, Jon's ambitions seem to change as the film progresses. First, it seems as if he wants to be with Thora, but then he is haunted by the memories of Anna. Then it seems as if Jon wants out of his engagement in order to go back to his old life, but that is impossible since Anna is dead. It is difficult to say whether Jon finds happiness or not. At the end of the film he goes back to teaching, yet his personal life with Thora seems to mirror the complacency he had with Anna. Will things turn out the same, or will Jon get his 'happily ever after'? The viewer never knows.The themes of time, love, and dreams are all present in "White Night Wedding". The theme of time is present not only in the two timelines that are being presented simultaneously of Jon's relationships with Anna and Thora, but also in the fact that time is quickly ticking away as the wedding draws ever more near. The theme of love is present not only between the main characters but also between some of the minor characters as well. And finally, the viewers learn of each character's own hopes and aspirations yet they do not know whether or not they are seen to fruition.

Baltasar Kormakur's White Night Wedding offers a compelling glimpse into the pursuit of dreams and happiness through the story of a couple's simultaneously tragic and humorous wedding night. By weaving together stories from different times and perspectives, Kormakur shows the full range of human emotion, from terrible despair and loss to finding new love and dreams for the future. With its expert balance of mainstream film conventions with the realistic and at times blunt nature of Nordic film, the film was generally met with success. It received 7 Edda awards and was also Icland's entry for the foreign-language Oscar in 2009. The plot revolves around Jon, a 40-some philosophy professor, on the eve of his second wedding. The first scene portrays Jon as apathetic and uninterested in his young bride Thora, as the film progresses his behavior is slowly justified as we learn about the tragic events of his past marriage that haunt him. The film blurs past and present as the scenes alternate between the comedic escapades of the groom's best friend's drunken late-night activities, Jon's conflict with Sisi (Thora's mother), and flashbacks of Jon's struggles with his late wife, Anna. One of the film's most intriguing aspects stems from the delicate way that Kormakur stretches and obscures the passage of time. The "White Night" of the film's title refers to the day of the year when the dark of night is shortest. This creates a strange visual experience for the viewer: although the primary events of the film occur over the course of night, the constant presence of the hazy Icelandic sun obscures our reference point for the passage of time. Because of the importance of the impending wedding the next day, the viewer feels a heightened sense of discomfort upon this temporal confusion. Additionally, Jon's flashbacks further disrupt our sense of time. The transitions between past and present are subtle, and with significant overlaps in setting and characters, the viewer is not always aware in what time or space the events on the screen are taking place. Overall, this temporal obscurity enhances our understanding of the pervasive emotional turmoil to which Jon, Anna, Thora, Sisi, and many of the other characters are subject. Obfuscating our sense of time in the film is just one of many ways that Kormakur evokes a strong emotional response from the viewer. There is significant contrast between the emotions of the past and present events portrayed in the film. The humorous exploits of Jon and his friends as they gallivant drunkenly through the town are strongly juxtaposed with vignettes of Jon's past life. We acutely experience Anna's severe depression, the priest's anger and frustration, and Sisi's domineering abuse alongside comedic dreams of a golf course gone awry, the passion of new love, and whimsical mountaintop serenades. Through this juxtaposition, we experience each set of emotions all the more profoundly. The breathtaking setting of the island of Flatey perpetuates these emotions well: a rather garish lighting of the bright island hills somehow fits the essence of both the raw unhappiness of the past and the inescapable imminence of the immediate future. The high contrast between land, sea, and sky captures the high contrast of the character's emotions and our responses to those emotions. The wide variety of characters in the narrative allows us to experience the full range of human emotions, and is a source of great entertainment and poignancy in the film. Through mere glimpses into the lives of these characters, the audience feels a deep sense of compassion and understanding of each of their walks of life. One of the film's most lovable characters is Lasus, Thora's father. Though dejected by his domineering wife, Lasus find solace in music and entertaining Flatey's visitors. However, Lasus' jovial spirits are bittersweet: he has left behind his dream of becoming an opera singer. A shot of his plump, naked body bobbing alone in the sea as he sings a lonesome folk tune profoundly captures the essence of this emotionally duality. Another highlight of the island's residences is Malla, Thora's delightfully contrary sister. Though Malla is a social misfit and is constantly chastised by Sisi, she too finds a form of love and learns to have the gumption to triumph over Sisi's bullying. This ramshackle bunch of eccentric characters allows us to experience the entire spectrum of human emotion that is so critical in the film. Their wants, desires, and dreams fulfilled and unfulfilled tell a tale of life's many journeys, good and bad. Like the sun's perpetual trek across the sky, we are at times unable to change the course of events that befall us. Love and life is at times lost. However, life is not lived with the arrival or disappearance of night and day, but rather in the spaces in between: in the white night, in the perpetual and unavoidable journey that life itself entails. Overall, White Night Wedding offers a painfully honest tale that wonderfully captures the countless complexities of the human journey.

I liked the first half of the movie because of the beautiful scenery of Iceland. The island is beautiful, the small community on it is interesting and one can easily start to dream how it might be to live in there. Some characters are really funny and definitely likable (the huge Viking-looking friend of the lead character is definitely someone who would be very cool to party with). And the "development project" for the island is funny and crazy as well.On the other hand the story was somewhat hard to understand for me. It took me half of the movie to actually understand that the movie is basically a big pile of mess assembled from scenes from "the past" and scenes from "the present". These scenes are blended so homogeneously that they actually seem to be single linear yet surreal story. Actually I was not sure if there is one lead character who has one wife and tries to marry another one or if there are identical twins or what the hell happens. I was confused. The cuts basically do not give any clues about temporal relations of individual scenes.So I have started to untangle the storyline mess only at the end - and the resulting story was not something I would like. Especially the lead character is very ugly in the resulting picture - cold, weak and immoral. His first wife was much more interesting and true character. Maybe it would be better for me if I spent the rest of the movie in false idea that it is just visually beautiful, surreal, experimental movie.