An Icelandic film on the life of a woman whose job it is to flag travelers using stolen or fake passports

The low-key Icelandic feature And Breathe Normally (2018), directed by Isold Uggadóttir, gives us a look at the effect of tightened border security has on many people – inside and outside of the system – and also shows the inadequacies of the systems of social and economic support, for citizens and deportees alike, even in a country as seemingly egalitarian and prosperous as Iceland. The story line, in brief, follows a young single mom on the verge of bankruptcy who’s a candidate for a job checking passports and documents of travelers who stop in Iceland en route to America and other destinations of supposed freedom. A handful are traveling on fake or stolen dox, and it is her job to flag these cases and send the woeful travler off to holding cells, imprisonment, and most likely deportation. Through a series of somewhat absurd coincidences, the woman’s life becomes entwined with the life of an African woman whose fake passport she flagged; over the course of their sometimes strained friendship, both learn abou the lives of others, and in the end there’s a lovely moment of salvation. It’s a small-scale film, sad at times, and it successfully fulfills its modest, low-budget ambitions.