“Woman at War” deserves praise not only for its deft touch in covering the heavy issue of our industrial impact upon the environment, but also for capturing the unique culture of Iceland.

But what really makes it stand out to me is that it’s also one of the best subversions and affirmations of the superhero genre in years, even though I deeply doubt that writer-director Benedikt Erlingsson intended it as such.

Halla (Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir), a chipper choir conductor in her native Iceland, leads a secret life as a saboteur of a multinational aluminum plant in her country’s highlands, using affordable tools and well-honed skills in archery and hiking to carry out her environmental campaign of one, with only a wary government employee and a kind farmer as her allies.

She has a secret identity. She has a cool-sounding alias (“The Woman of the Mountain,” as she calls herself in the manifesto she manages to circulate to the public, without leaving a trace). Like Peter Parker, building his own web-shooters, there are limits to the resources she can tap to equip herself. And like Bruce Wayne training to be Batman, she’s spent time developing her talents.

It’s fashionable to dismiss superhero narratives, even ones ostensibly set in the “real world,” as merely being adolescent power fantasies, but what “Woman at War” reminds us is that, ever since two Jewish kids created their own “Superman” as an answer to Hitler’s appropriation of Nietzsche’s philosophy, the core of the genre is about someone who stands up as a champion for the voiceless.

“Woman at War” even hangs a lampshade on its own sense of narrative grandiosity by giving Halla a phantom band to play appropriately mood-setting music during each of her most dramatic moments. The three instrumentalists are joined by a similarly fourth wall-breaking trio of Ukrainian singers, who serve as her Greek chorus after she learns that her application to adopt an orphaned Ukrainian girl has finally been approved, after four years.

By incorporating such overtly absurd elements, Erlingsson deliberately distracts from his more subtle directorial cues. In one scene, the Icelandic president explains to a group of tourists how the Viking chieftains of old made their most influential decisions within a “ring of power.” This is followed by his government advisors discreetly breaking away from the tour group to confer on what to do about “The Woman of the Mountain,” forming a closed-off decision-making circle of their own.

Erlingsson also recognizes that real-life narratives are ultimately reshaped by such “rings of power,” as we see when Halla’s eloquent and well-intended manifesto is capitalized upon by the government to paint her as a foe of both the economy and democracy, with media pundits following the government’s lead in suggesting “The Woman of the Mountain” could be considered the equivalent of a Jihadist.

While our would-be do-gooder’s saga ends on a mostly upbeat note, it’s not without its sacrifices; some by those closest to her, and others by recurring characters such as a dark-skinned Spanish man who must be the world’s unluckiest tourist. His constant profiling by the authorities, even though he’s innocent, highlights how often Halla is able to escape suspicion simply by virtue of her white privilege.

And the very last scene is none too subtle in illustrating the long-term impact of man-made climate change on our future, since we see that it’s the future generations for whom Halla seeks to provide.