Ingaló is seventeen and lives with her parents and her younger brother Sveinn on the remote fjord coast of Iceland. After being involved in a fight in a dance hall, she quarrels with her parents. She could never get on well with them and she flees with Sveinn. After a trip which also takes them to Reykjavik, they return to the coast and find work on a little fishing boat. Sveinn is obviously not cut out for the harsh and primitive life of a fisherman, but the insolent and fierce Ingaló manages to keep her head above water in the rough world of the men as the cook on board. The terrible conditions in which the fishermen have to live and work infuriate Ingaló and her fury awakens that of the others: a strike breaks out. The strike is a success and celebrated enthusiastically. The party to celebrate gets out of hand and then next voyage is fateful.Ingaló was shot entirely on location as a documentary and has an extremely authentic look. Its maker succeeded in adding several humorous elements to the realistic idiom. Derek Elley (Variety) described the film as minor but winning and impressive as a debut. He compared the sharp portrait of harsh Icelandic fishing life with Ken Loach’s early work, in which social reality was also given a fictional form. Bill Chernaud (Libération) said he was in love with the film, but suspected it would smell too much of herring for some people.
