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Noi
Release Date: 2004-10-12
Sales rank: 23572
Is he the village idiot or a genius in disguise? Seventeen-year-old Nói drifts through life on a remote fjord in the north of Iceland. In winter, the fjord is cut off from the outside world, surrounded by ominous mountains and buried under a shroud of snow. Nói dreams of escaping from this white-walled prison with Iris, a city girl who works in a local gas station. But his clumsy attempts at escape spiral out of control and end in complete failure. Only a natural disaster will shatter Nói’s universe and offer him a better world.Hairless, gaunt, and pallid, the title character of Noi is an Icelandic slacker, a smart but alienated high school boy with a boozing dad and meager prospects. His small-town life brightens a bit when he meets Iris, the daughter of a local bookstore owner, who's vacationing from the city. For their first date, they break into a museum and kiss in front of a taxidermed polar bear. But Noi's life continues its downward turn; he's expelled from school and gets a job as a gravedigger, prompting a desperate gesture. Noi is sort of a collision between Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Scandinavian nihilism (the bookstore owner quotes the dour philosopher Kierkegaard). Fortunately, the bleak events are carried out with skewed humor and sly visual flair. The restlessness and despair of adolescence are captured with honesty and sympathy. --Bret Fetzer |
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101 Reykjavík
Release Date: 2003-04-15
Sales rank: 40190
Sexy Spaniard Victoria Abril heats up the wintry city of ReykjavÃk in 101 ReykjavÃk. Icelandic slacker Hlynur (Hilmir Snær Guðnason) lives on welfare with his mother, leading a depressed and aimless existence. His mother invites her flamenco teacher, Lola (Abril), to live with them; while his mother is away for New Year's Eve, Hlynur and Lola have a drunken fling. But upon her return, Hlynur's mother tells him that she and Lola are lesbian lovers--and it soon comes out that she and Lola are going to have a baby together. 101 ReykjavÃk seems to be the contemporary Icelandic version of American movies of the 1970s like Five Easy Pieces, in which antiheroic characters struggle to make sense of a world that doesn't seem to have any place for them. The movie is a bit unfocused, but its urban malaise feels genuine, if not particularly new. Abril is delightful, as always. --Bret Fetzer |
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The Seagull's Laughter
Release Date: 2005-03-01
Sales rank: 43921
It is 1953, and Freya, who had gone to America as an officer’s bride, has returned home to begin a new life. She moves into a small house of distant relatives in a quiet fishing village within Iceland. But unlike the drab, plump girl who went abroad, Freya, now in her twenties, is a stunningly beautiful woman. With her long chestnut brown hair, slender figure, and chic American fashions, she is somewhat of a mystery to the women of the household, including the inquisitive eleven-year-old Agga, and especially to the men of the community. But as Agga soon notices, strange things have been happening since Freya’s arrival. Women are asserting their independence and men are mysteriously keeling over. Is Freya a murderess? A goddess of love? These are questions young Agga would very much like to have answered.An Icelandic film set in the 1950s, The Seagull's Laughter supports the dramatic truism that there are only really two tales to tell-- the tale of a long journey, or one in which a stranger comes to town. This charming and funny film falls into the latter category. The stranger is Freya (Margrét Vilhjálmsdóttir), an Icelandic diva who returns from America after her serviceman husband dies, only to immediately stun her household of relatives into awed admiration as she vamps with her impressive wardrobe and charms the town's men. Her actions are observed by the women of the house, including the keen-eyed young girl Agga (Ugla Egilsdóttir), who comes to suspect Freya of murder. There's not much suspense in the chicanery that ensues, with the film rooted in these women's sisterhood of willfulness rather than the who-done-it mechanics of a standard-issue thriller. At its best, the film interlocks with greater Icelandic literary and dramatic traditions, the sagas with their strong-willed female protagonists and the fortitude of characters from the works of Nobel laureate Haldor Laxness. The cinematography is a step up from recent Icelandic films like Noi and 101 Reykjavik, with otherworldly blue twilight and gnarled geography suggesting Middle Earth more than Middle-Atlantic. The Seagull's Laughter is a comedy about cold-blooded murder that naturally leaves one feeling pleasantly warm. --Ryan Boudinot |
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The Juniper Tree
Release Date: 2002-04-23
Sales rank: 63714
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Devil's Island
Release Date: 2000-07-05
Sales rank: 55395
From the director of Cold Fever comes a bittersweet tale of Iceland at the dawn of its independence. Set in the 1950s in an abandoned Army barracks, Devil's Island follows two brothers, Baddi and Danni, who are brought up by their grandparents. |
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The Sea
Release Date: 2003-09-30
Sales rank: 67631
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The Sea
Release Date: 2004-10-19
Sales rank: 70071
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