My biggest mistake was watching this movie as Christmas. A less than Christmas movie is hard to imagine. When I saw it, I thought that this film was perfect as a target for the fasteners – they would find in it all the signs of a morally corrupt Europe. And everyone expected that there would be at least a hint that the film’s director was mocking his characters = dull, worthless boobs who do nothing, can’t and don’t want to (as Estlund mocks in The Triangle of Sorrow, which I watched before). But no. All their behavior, including treating a minor nephew with a joint of anasha, is presented as a modern norm. The humor in the film is like this: a saleswoman at a Reykjavik market offers young people porn with a pig, and one of the guys asks for better porn with a Rudolph deer (and everyone giggles at this 'terribly funny' joke).
In general, the film is unpleasant, uninteresting, with a disgusting aftertaste, I regret that I spent an hour and a half of my precious time on it. And Victoria Abril, unfortunately, did not save the situation.
1 out of 10
I will be dead after I die, and I was dead before I was born. Life is a window to death.
Iceland is an interesting country. Cinema there is in great honor, because it is one of the most popular and affordable types of entertainment. Accordingly, there is its own film industry, which sometimes produces good pictures, although when you watch them, you willy-nilly cringe, literally feeling two business cards of the northern island: cold and alienation. By our standards, it’s not that cold.
The main character, the “parasite” Khlinur, can be called adapted to the climate, that is, frostbitten: monotonous days and nights, random connections, no fervor of feelings. Living with my mom at that age is strange. It is true that he is saved by a peculiar sense of humor.
This is a family dinner, not a funeral!
- I'd prefer a funeral. There is at least one less idiot.
But there is a piece of sultry Spain, whose name in the credits initially suggests an auditory hallucination: the star of the films Almodóvar, beautiful and hot Victoria Abril with her charming broken English. She initially refused an invitation to visit Iceland. After reading the opening lines of the script, which read: "Welcome to Iceland, it's 3 a.m., the temperature overboard is -15 degrees Celsius, wish you a pleasant stay," she decided that it was impossible to make a film at minus 15, and did not even finish the script. But in the end it seems that the presence of a Spaniard in the frame raises the temperature to plus twenty. I don't think the crew is cold.
The Rekjavik feature is the opposite of coming-out: usually children have to reveal themselves to their parents, and here the situation is opposite. Same-sex marriage in the country has been legalized relatively recently, and Icelandic cinema generally likes to emphasize its tolerance, breadth of views and lack of hypocrisy. So the choice of the topic is unlikely to surprise anyone who is even slightly familiar with the softening Nordic mores.
Baltasar demonstrates the vitality of Northern European cinema: starting from a small one, he gradually began to get up to the cherished Hollywood hills, inviting stars like Kate Beckinsale, Mark Wahlberg, Diana Kruger, Vincent Perez to his films. However, his early work, let’s be honest, was much more original. “Recjavik” still remains for me among the favorite paintings of Baltasar – including thanks to the strange duo Gudnason-Abril.
P. S. Did you know that on Christmas Eve zoophiles scour benches looking for porn with Rudolph, the reindeer?
Victoria Abril's metamorphosis. Unexpected ironic extravaganza in Iceland
This is now the name of Balthazar Cormaukur in many ears. And in the year the film was released, the director was hardly known outside Iceland. But his ironic comedy simply could not fail to become famous. Balthazar tried very hard and gave a laconic extravaganza permeated with irony, vitality and exquisite banter over the notorious tolerance. Here you can describe the vulgar plot vicissitudes of the hero, who was forced to be jealous of his beloved to his mother, but you can distinguish quite another. Cormaukure shows more than a high degree of sexual freedom - without ageism, sexism and many other... isms. No discrimination, just like the trend. You can’t pay for another person for parking. It does not violate the law, but for such a simple act a person can be taken to the police. And notice, without any litigation. And most importantly, how subtly and exquisitely Balthazar serves this dish combining a detached Nordic temperament and a passionate sexual line. Victoria Abril, the “hot” star of Vicente Aranda and Pedro Almodóvar, is very fitting. With her simple presence, she seems to melt the proud fjords and all the patterns break.
If you haven’t seen the movie, just imagine a twenty-five-year-old man living with his mother. It's not working. Lives on welfare. He's not aiming for anything. But one day, his mother introduces him to a young friend and leaves for a few days outside the city. Do you think you’ve already guessed what “the whole thing” is?
Things are not at all what they seem - Balthazar's humor turns out to be very restrained. And the more he shows restraint in the current plot, the stronger the effect is.
7 out of 10
Twenty-five-year-old slacker Hlinur lives on welfare in his mother's house. He sleeps at least until lunch, pleasing himself while watching porn movies, loitering around bars and trying to incline the opposite sex to close contacts of the third degree. Sometimes he even succeeds. Alcohol is the source and solution of all problems - without it, this loser would have a bagel hole, not women. True, one of his few love fortunes - cute blonde Holfie, even sees him as a potential suitor. Why not? Same option. Iceland is a small country, men are often prone to assault, and Chlinur, for nothing, which is not an example of gallantry or sexual gigantism, still seems to be a very harmless guy - such a funny hen hen.
The somnambulistic existence of Chlinur would have continued, perhaps, until his death, had not burst this very existence passionate Spanish Fury Lola performed by the "Almodovar girl" Victoria Abril. This friend and his mother’s mistress came to Iceland to teach flamenco. At one point, thanks to the departure of the mother and the intervention of the faithful friend of Khlinur - alcohol, the beauty finds herself in the bed of our hero. Although the bed here is a very conventional concept, because the characters enter coitus with enviable frequency and regularity in various places of the house. Lola’s unrestrained, volcanic sexuality melts the chlinurian glacier, transforming it into a geyser and causing its waters to erupt frequently and violently.
The orgasmic climax of the film becomes a kind of reference point, for from this moment the viewer has to wonder whether it will be a fateful and meaningful, or just a short, albeit rather bright, flash in the middle of the endless polar night of Chlynur’s consciousness. The first means leaving the tape in the direction of banal melodrama with elements of “educational film”, the second, taking into account the mental pallor of the hero – that we have a chic deception in the style of “Funny Games” by Michael Haneke.
Icelander of Spanish origin Baltasar Kormakur, who participated as an actor in two films by the leading Icelandic director Friedrik Thor Friedriksson, in his directorial debut, although he exploits the theme of the “Icelandic restless” so characteristic of his mentor, but in stylistic terms it goes a completely different way. Friedrick Thor's cinema is extremely melancholy. There is an atmosphere of hopelessness and sadness in the air. Sometimes there is even the idea of a kind of rethinking of ancient Greek tragedies in the conditions of the Icelandic wastelands. In addition, every film of Friedrik Thor clearly traced deep, almost Kherzogov (if we take as a guide the films “Everyone for himself, and God against all”, “Stroszek” and “Wojzek”) sympathy for the fate of their heroes. Kormakur, in turn, reduces the tragedy to farce, deliberately simplifying everything in order to show the pettiness of the high-pitched splint of individual members of the middle class. Where Friedrick Thor has only a slight bitter irony, Cormacourt has sarcasm in its wilderness. And the attitude to the hero varies dramatically. Kormakur’s chlinur is not an unfortunate white whale that washed ashore, but only a disembodied wretch, unable to take responsibility and show true empathy.
Masquerading as a relaxed romantic comedy, 101 Reykjavik turns out to be an acute social farce - a satire on the mores of not only modern Iceland, but also many other countries at all times. In the image of Khlynur, many may see their own reflection (as, for example, the author of these lines), but not all are ready to admit it. It's easier to spit and move on. Eventually, we will be dead after death and dead before birth, and life is only a week. Amen.
7 out of 10
What to do in a well-fed Europe, because the state pays you only for what you are.
The best book I've ever seen. Mood transmitted to all 100. That's exactly what the choir should be. And even though Lola in the film is Spanish, and Hlinur's mother is engaged in flamenco, it only gives a flavor. I am glad that the film adaptation did not include many unnecessary scenes and characters.
The soundtrack is as confused and amusing as the thoughts of Hlinur Björn, an honest taxpayer living on welfare and unable to deal with his life.
The film, by the way, stands out from the overall picture of Scandinavian cinema. It's explosive. There is no Nordic silence in the frame, there is always something going on. It's like a carnival in winter.
Iceland’s capital, Reykjavík, is the northernmost metropolis in the world, with a population of 130,000, about half of the total population. It occupies the second largest island of Europe, whose length is approximately 300 km from north to south and almost 500 km from west to east. Despite the fact that the main city of Iceland resembles a small and quiet regional center, it is possible to find all kinds of newfangled entertainment.
But the same can not be said about the island periphery, where, according to local residents, these same entertainment once or twice and overcooked. And if you do not count the Internet, then there will be nothing left – sex (so as not to freeze) and movies (so as not to abuse sex). Perhaps that is why Iceland is considered one of the most visited countries in the world. Despite the fact that their films are shot here about 5-7 per year, national cinema has long been trying to get rid of the “provincial complexes”. An exemplary example of overcoming this very marginality is the film 101 Reykjavik, which became a national megahit.
Hlainur, an unemployed loser living on welfare (like many in Iceland), continues to be in the care of a single mother for 25 years after birth. In the evenings, Hlainur hangs out in bars, and spends the nights with random girls, one of whom has the most serious views on him and is preparing to attach as a husband to his family. And then Hlainur quite inappropriately meets the friend of his advanced mother - exotic Spanish Lola, age fit for him as an aunt.
Lola came to teach flamenco dance technique at a local dance group. Hlainur instantly falls in love with a passionate Spaniard, who reciprocates him, but only for one single night - while his mother is away, because Lola and mother are mistresses. However, after a couple of months, it turns out that Lola is pregnant and expecting a child with Hlainur. So the mama's son suddenly finds himself in an extremely unusual position - he is preparing to become the father of his ... brother.
Such a family and tribal metamorphosis, in fact, is the main attractive element of the film, with a sad irony reflecting the paradoxes of modern morals of good-natured northern islanders, attached “behind the bosom” of world civilization. Once in these parts led an active nomadic life Viking Scandinavians, and now languish from the predetermined fates of their settled descendants, overcoming the limitations of space except with the help of the World Wide Web.
34-year-old Icelandic director Baltazar Kormakur unobtrusively follows in his debut film in the footsteps of the Spanish mockingbird Pedro Almodóvar, borrowing one of his favorite actresses – Victoria Abril, who played the main troublemaker here. Unlike Hollywood, Cormacourt does not seek world domination and focuses, at best, on the European market, brilliantly proving the viability of the national cinema of a small power.
In addition to the fact that 101 Reykjavik did not leave the local screens for six months, earning a third of a million dollars in this almost dwarf country, he also got a bunch of festival regalia of not the smallest festivals.