The industrious dairy farmers Reynir and Inga are waging a Sisyphus battle in an Icelandic corner. The investment in milking robots was unfortunately made just before the financial crisis, since then the debt has increased faster than the income. They are basically serfs and in the hands of the local agricultural cooperative that governs the area, once a democratic association of farmers, now a corrupt organization with mafia methods.
The farmers take loans from the cooperative, at the same time as they are forced to both trade and sell to it. Fertilizer prices are sky high, but what to do? If you buy from the "town", you will be blacklisted by the cooperative, with the mighty Eyjólfur at the helm.
A series of events causes Inga to take up the fight against the cooperative. The fighting methods consist of buying manure elsewhere, refusing to sell their milk and throwing cow dung on Eyjólfur's well-combed hay cloths. It is a small revolution that ideologically could be a hot discussion at a meeting of the Center Party. How should the living countryside be preserved? Free small businesses in cooperation with each other but in a completely deregulated market, or a protectionist attitude where the countryside is set against the city and the rest of the world?
Although the conflict is difficult and the very content of the idea could be discussed for an eternity, it is above all Inga, her work and fearless bullying that is interesting. Milk, harrow, manure, suede, flush, vacuum… With a face and body shape characterized by a whole life of body work and struggle, the same bitter toughness is turned into a fucking embrace once she begins to question her existence.
Arndís Hrönn Egilsdóttir in the lead role is like carved in stone and completely self-evident. Playing a grim type one-sidedly would have been easy, but Inga is given depth, humor, color and longing. What at first looks like a straight through windswept history during a sad season in a rather ugly part of Iceland, thaws through Egilsdóttir's straight to the point game, the well-drawn relationships and through details such as unexpected musical choices.
Director Grímur Hákonarson has been a great success with an agricultural theme in the past. Among men and sheep was far more audience-friendly in both premises and beautiful environments. The Milk War is a low-key on the verge of a tough story of corruption, fear, integrity and liberation. The film is a bit predictable but well-drawn and gratefully freed from over-aestheticizing. This is what Iceland can also look like. This is what work also looks like. This is what lifelong love can also look like.