“Tragic losses never mourned, unrelenting Icelandic gloom, and one enormous tree loom over two families pitted in an escalating battle of wills. Director Hafsteinn Sigurðsson’s film, Under the Tree, begins as a trifling neighborhood dispute about an overgrown shade tree and ends as a violent tug-of-war with alarmingly high stakes.
“Darkly comic and submerged in irony, events unfold with the inevitability of a slow-motion car wreck. When the emotional and physical carnage finally recedes, Sigurðsson leaves us with one haunting image that proves the universe has a sick sense of humor indeed.” - Seattle Times