Barbara - The film
The Danish director Nils Malmros has made a screen version of Barbara, the famous novel by Faroese author Jergen-Frantz Jacobsen. The story takes place in the Faroe Islands in an 18th century. Briefly put, the plot of the novel- and the film- is as follows: The schooner "Fortuna" brings the newly graduated Danish theologian Poul Aggerse to the Faroe Islands to serve as priest on the island of Vagar. Fate has it that Mr. Poul meets and marries Barbara, the vivacious young widow of a priest who has a reputation for being a bird of ill omen. However, their erotic joy is short-lived and Barbara's larger-than-life infatuation reaches beyond the anaemic priest. Mr. Poul is filled with anxiety and the fear of losing his Barbara. When, in his official capacity, he pays a visit to the almost inaccessible island of Mykines and, due to a storm, has to remain there for eleven days, he feels that Barbara is slipping away from him. And indeed, on his homecoming he finds the vicarage empty. Barbara has left for Torshavn with the young student Andreas Heyde. In his misery he pursues them, loses his humanity and ends up in prison.
Faroe is SG335
Faroes Philatelic.