A source of income for some, a means of revenge for others – for me and countless TV watchers, crime is just entertainment.

Actually, I don’t watch all that much TV, not even crime, for various reasons, one of them being that what happens on the screen all seems a bit irrelevant. Not that I’m not in favour of a little bit of escapism! I guess my escapism just takes other forms than, for instance, gory on-screen murders.

Sometimes, however, I do actually enjoy even a gory on-screen murder, and over the past week I have been watching the first five episodes (of 10) of an Icelandic film for TV titled Trapped / Innesperret (signed Baltasar Kormákur).

Anybody who has ever been to any of the tiny, remote towns that still dot isolated areas of the western world must have wondered: How do they manage? What makes them tick? Why do people stay? Are they in any way like us? And what if a murder were to happen here just when a blizzard was blocking all communication with the rest of the world?

On the coast of Iceland, blizzards happen all the time, and yes, they do from time to time block all communication with the rest of the world. That’s what the film is about. It tells a realistic story not only of a gory murder, but of a town you can actually see on the map, a town that has survived, survives and will continue to survive against all odds, despite isolation from glitzy honey pots. Although the location Seydisfjördur is real, the characters portrayed are fictional, but they are sure to exist somewhere, because they are the kind of people that are likely to live in any town.

Like any small place, it looses some people, who move to the big world. But all in all, the grandeur and courage of the film’s Seydisfjördur and its people is magnificent. Somehow, the film helps me understand why people I admire actually choose to live in such places, even to move there.