The end of the world is wearing green fur. Hunched hills, as far as the eye can see, covered with velvety green moss, there is the Eldhraun field, 565 square kilometers of solidified lava in southwestern Iceland, a surreal landscape larger than Lake Constance, which you can reach on bumpy gravel roads, over a dilapidated bridge , on the foundation of which a raging river gnaws.

In the middle of this treeless nowhere, a painter in blue hooded overalls is fighting with his canvas. It is pouring rain, icy winds whip from the sea over the plateau as he sets up the easel and slips on an apron. Again and again, gusts of wind tear the stretcher out of the holder, rainwater runs down the face and neck, down the rubber-coated legs of the pants, right into the shoes as he mixes oil paints on his palette and with brisk brushstrokes the fairytale attempts to ban end-time scenery onto the screen. It is not a masterpiece, rather a greenish-blurred sketch with streaky water traces on a warped frame. Nevertheless, Ragnar Kjartansson triumphs when he stows the picture in his Land Rover and lights a cigarillo as a reward: “Slowly I am getting deeper into the lava. Wow, what a magical country. Sometimes I get really scared, it’s so fairytale. “ Ute Thon.