Before & After & Inbetween

The other day Geoff and some friends and I went to see an Icelandic movie called The Love That Remains, and I have basically no idea what the hell it was.

I mean, moment by moment it was interesting, and engaging, and the kids were great? It's a couple with three kids, the couple are divorced but still pretty involved with each other (including occasional sex), he's out working on a fishing boat much of the time and she lives with the kids and her dad and is an artist. But, it starts with them divorced but still bound up with each other, and it ends with them divorced but still bound up in each other, and it seemed to me that at least a couple of years went by (judging by what we see of the changing seasons, although IMDb says it's one year) but the kids never age or go to school or indeed see any human being other than their family (except for a brief medical thing), and it's sort of magically weird (e.g., dad kills one of the family's roosters because it's supposedly become aggressive and is then -- in a dream, presumably? -- himself savaged by a giant rooster) and I have no idea whether the way it ends is real-world plausible, or another dream sequence, or just plain bananas.

the ending

Because of the injury to one of the kids that prompts the medical thing, dad is going to leave his fishing boat mid-fishing trip and come home. But instead of the boat either interrupting its work returning him to shore or rendezvousing directly with another boat that can bring him home, he's plopped into the ocean in a flotation suit and just drifts in the open sea, waves washing over the emergency light blinking on his chest, for at least a full day and night, waiting for the other boat to arrive and pick him up. And he's still drifting, occasionally screaming, as the movie ends. Is he screaming because the other boat hasn't shown up and he's going to die there? Is this a remotely plausible way for him to be transferred from one boat to another? I mean, I freely admit I know nothing about commercial herring fishery, but it seems awfully risky. Is it another dream sequence? I have no clue.

As we left, we were saying bemusedly to each other, "Did anything ever . . . happen? In that entire film?" and other people leaving the theatre laughed and echoed the question.

I mean, critics apparently like it, and I guess real life can be like that (except for the seven-foot rooster), but I think I'm not artsy enough for it. I want plot.