Together in isolation: the lockdown of the Faroe Islands (2021)

Here's the honest question this documentary never quite answers: why does the Faroe Islands' lockdown story need to be told separately from everybody else's? I came in curious, genuinely curious, because the Faroes are a fascinating place. Remote, rugged, a tiny population clinging to a chain of islands in the North Atlantic. If anywhere was going to have a genuinely different pandemic experience, surely it would be somewhere like this. But by the time the credits rolled, I was struggling to point to a single moment that felt meaningfully distinct from what the rest of us lived through in 2020.

And that, in a nutshell, is the problem. The documentary is pleasant enough. The scenery is gorgeous, the people are warm and clearly proud of where they're from, and there's something quietly charming about getting a window into a community that most of us will never visit. I'll give it that. If you've never heard much about the Faroe Islands before, you'll pick up a few things here. The scale of the place, the closeness of the communities, the strange intimacy of a population that small all knowing each other.

But then the film starts laying out what lockdown actually looked like there, and you realise you've seen this film before. Just not set here. People stuck indoors. Families on video calls. Worry about elderly relatives. Shops closing. The particular exhaustion of not knowing when it ends. All of it absolutely real, all of it absolutely valid, and all of it absolutely identical to what was happening everywhere from Glasgow to Guatemala City. The one genuinely interesting angle, that a virus might spread differently, faster even, through a population so small and so interconnected, gets a brief mention and then is more or less left alone. That's the thread I wanted pulled, and the film doesn't pull it.

It's the kind of documentary that feels like it was made because the opportunity was there, not because there was a sharp, specific story demanding to be told. The Faroe Islands deserve better than that, frankly. A place with that much character and that much history has stories worth chasing. This just isn't one of them. It reminded me a little of Megdan: Between Water and Fire, another documentary from a lesser-seen part of the world that I hoped would open a real window onto something unfamiliar. That one delivered. This one doesn't quite get there.

I should also flag, since I watched this on Plex, that some sections had no subtitles at all. Given that parts of the film are in Faroese, that's a fairly significant problem. Whether that's a Plex issue or a production oversight, I couldn't tell you, but it meant there were moments where I was genuinely just watching mouths move and guessing. Not ideal for a documentary where what people are actually saying is the whole point.

Two stars. It's not offensive, it's not unwatchable, and if you're working through an A-Z world movie tour like I am, it'll tick the Faroe Islands box. But I came out the other side feeling like I'd watched a pleasant enough travel segment that had been stretched well beyond what its material could comfortably sustain. There's a real documentary to be made about life in the Faroe Islands. This is more of a holding pattern while someone figures out what that documentary actually is.

Rating: ★★  | Year: 2021  | Watched: 2025-06-15

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Where to watch

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Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

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