The detective has his idiosyncrasies -- like Morse's English ale and classical music, or Colombo's dirty raincoat, Erlendur has woolly jumpers and heavy smoking. And there's the red herring, the flashbacks of the night of the murder, the forages into the personal life of the detective.

Suspense is very well built up, as we follow Erlendur in his investigations, and we are gradually given clues. There are little subtle hints that will lead the attentive spectator to work out the murderer's identity before all is finally explained.

As in so many detective thrillers, everything comes together at the perfect moment, forming a satisfying denouement, when the investigators realise whom they should be following, just as said murderer sets off to perform one last hysterical task. The film is compelling and indeed thrilling, as a crime adventure should be.

But in fact, the strengths of this film lie in its deviations from the traditions of the thriller genre. The tone is set at the very opening of the film, as the five year-old daughter of genetic specialist Örn lies dying in hospital, before it cuts to a shot of her cold, dead little toes being dressed in white lace stockings. The otherwise seemingly cold Erlendur goes through trials as a father, as his prodigal daughter returns to him, pregnant, but is still very obviously in need of his protection. The film closes with him lying with her on a sofa, explaining the pain he goes through in his professional and personal life. "You know I'm sorry I got angry at you, it just hurts me when I see you wasting your life like this. And then I have to go and dig up the body of a four year-old girl. I thought I could block it out, but you can't see all this filth and then come home and forget about it."

Though Mýrin is a crime thriller, and it does thrill, it is not manipulative. It is not sensationalist, and it doe not exist purely as entertainment. The thriller genre is a vehicle for Kormákur to demonstrate how vile the world can be. There are two clearly separate worlds in the film -- the family, and the criminal. And, as Erlendur's above quoted speech shows, when these two worlds meet, the result can be extremely painful. Erlendur's strong stomach and ability to withstand gore and disgustingness is show by his penchant for eating sheep's heads (the audience groaned with disgust as he scooped out the eyeball and devoured it.) At every crimescene, film's inability to portray smell was made up for by the visible disgust on the faces of the police workers. The depiction of crime is done with brutal honesty in graphic closeups of a rotting body -- Kormákur does not shy away from the truly horrible nature of murder. He does not romanticise it for the screen.

The emotional effect of the meeting of these two worlds is shown sensitively, and in several instances. Three different families are all touched by the story, and in their own ways, they all suffer from it. The film shows the dangers that can lie in the consequences of people's random actions. As a result of one woman's infidelity, an hereditary disease is passed down to her granddaughter. This affliction then becomes the motivation for this murder, which is being investigated thirty years later. The story is three-dimensional and well balanced because it shows both aspects of these people's lives. But the film manages not to be sentimental. It is peppered with well timed and deliciously dark humour. The jokes have continuity and are built up well -- the film has a unified consistency as small details have relevance throughout.

The comic aspect of the film adds a great deal. In the KVIFF Festival Daily/ Festivalový Deník (1.07.07) an interviewer asked the director why he had chosen to make a film in the thriller genre, which differs so strongly from his other films. Kormákur replied that he believes in stories, not genres. And it is clear from this film that he is sensitive to the complex nature of life (and to the fact that successful art does not stay within the limits of rules applied by theoreticians and interviewers.) He sees both the dark and the beautiful, he sees the ridiculous irony that pervades life, that even in the most difficult of situations, there is always some absurdity to it.

This is why Mýrin is the most popular film ever in the Icelandic box office, not because it is a thriller, nor because it is deals with genetic investigation. (The film touches on it only briefly, really. Kormákur put the film's success down to this aspect of it, but I think this is only because he is too modest to admit that he has a real talent for expressing the complexity and sensitivity of real life on the silver screen.) Kormákur has interwoven life and art and entertainment in this film, to great effect.