The 'Mountain Woman' in Woman at War: An Eco-Activist Action Heroine and her Sister(s)-in-Arms

This chapter considers an on-screen articulation of the shift in the women-nature association and, connectedly, the conceptualisation of a more radical action heroine for our ecological age. It focuses on Benedikt Erlingsson’s 2018 Icelandic film Kona fer í stríð/Woman at War and offers a close examination of its central character Halla (Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir). The chapter is especially interested in how the film’s presentation of its eco-warrior heroine does not necessarily mean the complete dismissal of various long-held traditions that reside in nature and (bourgeois) femininity, for example, the capacity for calm or the responsibility for (human) life’s continuation. The chapter thus considers, on the one hand, how Halla is presented as the fierce ‘Mountain Woman’ and, on the other, how she is a mild-mannered choir conductor who yearns to be a mother. As such, it argues that Halla can be read in extraordinary action heroine terms, with stunt sequences recalling the athletic capabilities of Hollywood action hero(in)es and, also, as an ordinary woman happy to embrace the smaller worlds of domesticity including childcare. Attentive to the book’s ‘sisters-in-arms’ focus, the chapter also considers Halla’s various support systems. In particular, it argues that the lone woman trope of the female-centred action film is complicated by a protagonist who increasingly requires assistants and accomplices in both her extraordinary and ordinary endeavours. From a friendly sheep farmer named Sveinbjörn (Jóhann Sigurðarson) to her twin sister, Àsa (also Geirharðsdóttir), Halla develops a strong network of support that brings to mind Donna Haraway’s notion of ‘making kin’ not least because it features ‘something other/more than entities tied by ancestry or genealogy’ (2016: 102–3) including those that are non-human. The film’s (re)definition of family extends to Halla’s route to motherhood via her adoption of a young Ukrainian girl.