Icelandic revelations There is nothing better when a director of feature films tries to tell the audience about his country, its history. And there is nothing worse if he is not destined to go beyond the standard framework of the life of even the most dramatic of its moments, surprise the audience with an unprecedented plot twist, or at least once give them a chance to smile. Modern Icelandic classic Friedrik Thor Fridriksson can safely write himself in the happy ranks of those who managed to create an unsurpassed atmosphere on more than serious material and for this he did not have to go overseas to his elder comrade. Moreover, Friedriksson, who had a chance to shoot a movie in the United States, this time decided to save his homeland and free it not so long ago from mythologemes and all sorts of insinuations in favor of the arbiter of world peace, who actually imposed his military assistance on this amazing country with the only capital on the globe beyond the Arctic Circle. The deployment of military bases was not reached then, but in the light of current global politics, this issue remains, of course, very relevant.
The political and economic situation in Iceland is stable, but almost half a century ago, after the end of World War II, things were much more complicated. Social stratification was great, and the poorest inhabitants of the period often used as housing former military barracks left by American and British representatives of the Allied forces. One of them houses a whole family of three generations. That all changes when an American officer named Charlie Brown proposes his hand and heart to an Icelandic woman with grown-up sons. After saying goodbye to his native penates, the new wife of the Yankees goes to the “fairytale” world, paving the way there for everyone. Such, however, there is only one person - a son named Buddy, not distinguished by special gentleness of character, but it is not difficult to understand him. Life around is like a dead pool, and “people” does not particularly pull out, and there are enough reasons for this – the unfriendlyness of prosperous citizens, the unsettled personal life... And the relatives are still the same, one eccentric grandmother Carolina with her tarot cards and a Bible that is worth it! If there is anywhere to escape from all this, it is only in the homeland of Abraham Lincoln.
Hiding in the first frames behind the mask of a Northern European household, Devil’s Island rapidly outgrows the narrow classics of the genre and gives something close to a bizarre soap opera with political overtones. You will meet with “real” foreigners, heroes of the modern saga, who do not have a shadow of gloss and awareness of themselves as part of the notorious Western society. Friedriksson tries in every possible way to shake up this solid conglomerate of descendants of distant Vikings, using alien archetypes, weaving mysticism into the narrative or breaking it into heterogeneous episodes, uncharacteristic of monolithic Scandinavian cinema. In some places, the film is teetering on the verge of banter or strives to depress in rare moments of truth, but the world still remains as it is, and the heroes, as befits ordinary people, humbly accept their fates. In this case, there is no question of any introspection and speech.
This film not only refutes the possible opinion that Icelandic cinema is far from reflective, but also shows that the authorities of local cinema in the person of the same director Friedriksson clearly realize the impossibility of the American way of developing Icelandic culture, which is too original to adapt to other versions. It is only necessary for one inhabitant of the island to change, so that where everyone knows each other, there will be trouble. Of course, it is hardly appropriate to talk about the devil, although everyone already knows where to look for him. In the same place, where the origins of the newfound Icelandic prosperity, and the causes of the economic crisis, which in fact turned out to be no scarier than time.