All language subtitles for Tales from the Gimli HospitalTales from the Gimli Hospital

[ship horn blares]

[cinematic orchestra
music playing]

[mystical music playing]

[operatic music playing]

[engine revving]

[car screeching]

[rock music playing]

[cars driving by]

[speaking indistinctly]

Amma, what were you
and my daddy talking about?

Children, your mother
needs her sleep
if she's going to get better.

Just let her listen
to her music.

[music playing]

Come, come sit with Amma.

Have I ever told you
the story of Einar the Lonely?

No?

And Snjofridur, the beautiful
young girl who was dying.

[music continues playing]

It all happened in a Gimli
we no longer know.

Beneath the sod rooftops

of that sleepy town
was a stirring.

A stirring at that hour, stolen
and kept by little girls.

Softly,
as in a morning sunrise.

[pleasant music playing]

[man singing]
♪ I'm a dreamer
Aren't we all ♪

♪ Just a dreamer
Aren't we all ♪

♪ In my dreams
Each night it seems ♪

♪ My sweetheart comes to call ♪

♪ She's so charming
More than all ♪

♪ It's alarming how I fall ♪

♪ She's divine
But then she can't be mine ♪

♪ And I'm a fool
But aren't we all ♪

[music continues]

[music stops]

[birds chirping]

[dramatic music playing]

[waves splashing]

[foreign language song playing]

[song fades]

[bird whistles]

[bird whistles]

[bird whistles]

[rustling]

[man screaming] Help! Help!

[knocking at door]

[dramatic music playing]

[solemn instrumental
music playing]

[cow mooing]

[man coughs]

[chickens clucking]

[cow mooing]

[bleating]

[man coughing]

[chicken clucking]

[coughs]

[mouthing] Hello.

[mouthing] Thank you.

[coughs]

[cow mooing]

[bell dinging]

[chickens clucking]

[music playing]

[man groans]

[groans]

[yells]

[bell tolls]

[foreign language song playing]

[music playing]

[mouthing indistinctly]

[rooster crows]

[cow mooing]

[indistinct conversation]

[man speaking foreign language]

[Amma] The patient,
Gunnar was his name,

was telling the nurses
stories from Gimli sagas.

He described for them the happy
winter of the warm snow.

The settler's
only season of joy

since landing
on the shores of Lake Winnipeg,

one long ago, October 21st.

He told them about

Sigvalda Sigurdsdottir
of Uhr District.

A woman who knitted
scarves and mittens

using wool carted
from her own hair trimmings.

This, in her own wise way,

she felt would bring luck
to her ailing son, Valdimar.

Valdimar had been
a sickly lad from birth.

A fevered gallbladder
made him absent minded

and prone to queer decisions.

With one
of his puzzling pranks,

he brought down upon his family
a curse for ten generations.

Then Gunnar told the nurses
about the daughters,

sisters of Fiola Land.

Long hours did these three
spend together at work,

rest and play.

For nine years,
they filled Fiola Land

with their promise,

their scent...

and their song.

One day, they strayed
deeply into the woods.

Too deeply, I fear,
for it was a hungry summer.

And the weeks passed
with neither the scent

nor the song
of the little girls.

Then came gliding
down the river,

three tiny wooden coffins.

Reposed within,
were the sisters.

Still together.

Drifting.

Were they dead?

Or were they merely
sleeping in the quiet boxes

borne along by the water
of the sad Icelandic river?

The night flowers' scent
in the wood

tells us that they live.

That they play tonight.

Played to the tolling of bells.

[Gunnar speaking
foreign language]

[coughs]

[continues speaking]

[Amma] Now envy
is a terrible ogre, children.

And Einar was fully in its jaws
during Gunnar's storytelling.

Later, the nurses returned
to their chores

and Gunnar rested in bed,

having been tucked in
by Elfa Egilsdottir

beneath the woolen blanket.

[screams]

[bell tolling]

[indistinct whispering]

[Amma] In the following weeks,
Einar's frustrations mounted.

A feeling
that he was perhaps invisible,

was joined by a conviction
that he must be a mute as well.

He tried
a new grooming strategy.

Growing a sideburn to match
the fissure on his cheek.

But the gambit went
completely unnoticed.

He tried to ingratiate himself
with the nurses

by doing their laundry chores.

But absolutely
no one seemed to appreciate

his sincere thoughtfulness.

He took up Gunnar's hobby
of bark fish cutting...

and bark fish appreciation.

But nothing changed

Einar's painful status
with the nurses.

A desperate attempt to match

Gunnar's prowess
as a storyteller

gave Einar momentary cause
for hope.

An account
from his own childhood,

an example of his bravery.

But no.

The minstrel in the next bed
had died.

The audience scattered forever

and the story was left untold.

Now, as you know, children,

beneath every bed
in New Iceland

was a hole in the floor
leading to the manger below,

where the heat would rise
from the animals,

keeping the settlers warm.

[cow mooing]

Down that hole

went the friendship
of the two men.

For once, Einar was to lend
Gunnar his fishing shears,

their relationship
would never be the same again.

[coughs]

Snjofridur.

On the first day of spring...

I was looking for lucky stones,

when upon the beach,

I-- I found something else.

A strange pile...

tangled in a fishnet

with books and driftwood.

I-- I was so curious.

I...

I think we scared each other.

She-- Oh.

She was beautiful
when she fled.

Soon I came calling.

Her name was Snjofridur.

I-- I don't think she liked me,

but we spent a lot of time
together.

I don't know why she...

[sighs]
It-- it was very nice of her.

We did favors for each other,

and I learned many new things.

The hours melted
beneath her touch.

But one day,
she noticed a mark.

And another.

We both knew
it was the epidemic.

She brought me
to the quarantine
and tucked me in

and read to me from theSagas.

For some reason,
she made herself busy with me.

When my fever made me sad,

she-- she taught me

the art of cutting

with her special scissors

a piece of bark,

into the shape of a fish.

She was nice,
but why did she do this?

She couldn't have anything
better to do

because she started
sleeping here, too.

In that very bed
you are in now, Einar.

Soon there was music in my ears

and there was to be a wedding.

Pastor Osbaldison came
from afar

to make the ceremony.

Standing up for me
was John Ramsay

from Meekly Island.

I, of course,
was still very sick.

And the pastor would not cross
the Icelandic river

for fear of the epidemic.

So we had to shout our vows
back and forth
across the water.

We could not hear the pastor
very well,

and I was too weak to shout.

So Snjofridur said,
"I do" for me.

Back at the quarantine,

John Ramsay and the nurses
made a cozy little room

for our first evening together.

Thank you, nurses.

Thank you, John Ramsay,

for watching over us
on this special night.

[rain pattering]

[ducks quacking]

[thunder rumbling]

I...

I...

I... [breath trembles]

I killed her.

[coughs]

Gunnar.

I too, have a bad fish
in my net.

It is a shame for me.

'Cause I have yet to tell
anyone.

One night,

near the Indian burial grounds,

where I often take a shortcut
around the willow swamp,

I heard the scary noise
in the bushes.

It was the cracking of a fire.

I saw it was
a new Indian funeral bed.

So I looked closer.

I could tell from the painting
on the bark wrapping

that it was the body
of a young woman.

I don't know
what made me do it,

but no one was around

and I started to take
the tokens the dead are given

for their journeys
in the afterward.

As I peeled away
each layer of the birch bark,

I found more and more tokens.

My head was very dizzy

with the ebony moonbeams
of that black night.

And Gunnar,

I say it with shame

from that young girl
that night,

I took much more
than just tokens.

[Gunnar] Einar,

you-- you did not let me
finish my story.

To bury my bride...

I call upon the help...

of my good friend...

John Ramsay.

He put us in his canoe.

She-- she felt so alive
in my arms,

and took us to the cemetery.

I was too sick to dig.

So I rested, while John Ramsay,
my devoted friend,

worked on Snjofridur's grave.

I was very surprised

when instead
of a Christian grave
in the ground,

he showed me
the Indian funeral bed,

Snjofridur on it.

"John,

John, why do you make this

when you should be making
the hole in the ground?"

But I was too sick
to do anything about it.

So I just gave her the scissors

that taught me the bark fish.

She could have them
with her always.

Those scissors,

the same scissors
that you took, Einar.

Einar, you took my presents.

You took my Snjofridur.

You took her goodness.

It is gone,
and it is never coming back.

[seagulls squawking]

[fire crackling]

[cow moos]

I'm blind.

I am blind.

[Gunnar crying]

[birds chirping]

[wind blowing]

[birds chirping]

[seagulls squawking]

[women sobbing]

[women continue sobbing]

[instrumental music playing]

[indistinct shouting]

[people vocalizing]

[loud bang]

[man speaking foreign language]

[speaker static]

[heart beating loudly]

[heartbeat stops]

[man speaking foreign language]

[heart beating loudly]

[heart beating loudly]

[heart beating loudly]

[voice fading]

[music playing]

[vocalizing in opera]

[all vocalizing]

[singing in foreign language]

[Einar] Gunnar.

Gunnar!

[singing continues]

[voices chanting]

[Einar laughing]

[Gunnar] Stop it.

Stop it.

[voices laughing]

Where are you, Snjofridur?

Why did you leave me?

-[Einar] Gunnar.
-[Gunnar] I miss you.

Why are you dead?

[Einar] Gunnar.

[laughing]

[Gunnar] Where are the scissors?

[Einar] Did you really think

Snjofridur will love
only one man?

Huh?

[Gunnar] Where are the scissors

- I gave you?
-[Einar] Gunnar.

Gunnar!

[Einar] My legs are still warm

from the flesh of Snjofridur.

[Gunnar] You were always
kissing the other men, maybe.

I... I wish you wouldn't.

[Einar] My legs are still warm

from the flesh of Snjofridur.

[Gunnar]
Why do you tell me this?

[man 1] Gunnar.

[Gunnar] What are you saying?

[Einar] Gunnar.

Gunnar.[laughs]

[children screaming]

[suspenseful music playing]

[screaming]

[instrumental bagpipe
music playing]

[groaning]

[cracking]

[pops]

[screaming]

[Amma] When Einar next awakened,

he was back in the quarantine.

All the other patients
had either left or died.

Einar had been lucky
enough to recover,

and would soon be
back at the lakeside,

back at the smokehouse.

[instrumental music playing]

[inaudible conversation]

[inaudible conversation]

Come. [inhales]

Shh.

She's gone to heaven, children.

Will she be coming back?

No, but she'll be watching
over you day and night.

Will you be our mother now?

No.

But I'll visit you,

if your father lets me.

What's heaven like, Amma?

Heaven? Well, now,

if you'll be good,

I think I feel
a story coming on.

[instrumental music playing]

[man singing
in foreign language]