Under the Tree (2017)

03 Sunday Feb 2019

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Þorsteinn Bachmann, Black comedy, Drama, Edda Björgvinsdóttir, Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson, Iceland, Neighbours, Review, Selma Björnsdóttir, Sigurður Sigurjónsson, Unhappy marriage

Original title: Undir Trénu

D: Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson / 89m

Cast: Steinþór Hróar Steinþórsson, Edda Björgvinsdóttir, Sigurður Sigurjónsson, Þorsteinn Bachmann, Selma Björnsdóttir, Lára Jóhanna Jónsdóttir, Dóra Jóhannsdóttir, Sigrídur Sigurpálsdóttir Scheving

Inga (Björgvinsdóttir) and Baldvin (Sigurjónsson) are an elderly couple who live next door to Konrad (Bachmann) and his second wife, Eybjorg (Björnsdóttir). The two couples get on for the most part, but there is a large tree in Inga and Baldvin’s garden that blocks out much of the light when Eybjorg uses their sun deck. This bone of contention has been raised once or twice, but Inga is determined that the tree will remain as it is. Meanwhile, her son Atli (Steinþórsson), has been kicked out by his wife, Agnes (Jónsdóttir), and has come back home while he tries to put things right between them. When all the tires of Baldvin’s car are slashed, and then Inga’s cat goes missing, these events trigger a further string of occurrences that threaten to – and then do – spiral out of control. Atli goes about reconnecting with Agnes in ways that serve only to antagonise her further, and which also have an effect on their young daughter, Asa (Scheving), and relations between the two sets of neighbours deteriorates to the point where tragedy and violence ensues…

In this pitch black comedy from Iceland, the opening scenes set the tone for the rest of the movie, with Atli caught masturbating to a sex tape he made with someone he knew before meeting Agnes. As awkward moments go, it’s pretty awkward, and there are many more to enjoy as the movie progresses, with each character either the victim of something horrible, or being the catalyst or instigator of something horrible. What’s clever though about the set up by writer/director Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson is the way in which he escalates matters between the two sets of neighbours, but without showing us if any of them really are responsible for, say, four slashed tyres, or the disappearance of a cat. This ambiguity hints at the possibility of a third party being involved, but again, Sigurðsson offers no clues as to this third party’s identity, and so the cycle of revenge plays out with a high degree of angry absurdity, as each couple blames the other for their woes. Tit for tat gives way to targeted, violent (even criminal) behaviour, until tragedy is compounded by further tragedy, and the original disagreement seems petty and inconsequential. Sigurðsson acknowledges what we all know to be true: all’s fair in hate and war.

Sigurðsson also isn’t afraid to make some of his characters unlikeable, or in Inga’s case, downright horrid. With a caustic tongue and a mind that’s been warped by grief – her other son, Uggi, has disappeared and is presumed dead, though no body has been found – Inga is played with angry gusto by Björgvinsdöttir, and it’s she who provides the movie with its most awful moment as the disappearance of her cat causes her to do something so terrible you can’t stop thinking about it after the movie has ended. That it also sets up one of the funniest moments in the movie is a tribute to the care with which Sigurðsson has crafted his narrative. But though the humour is as dark as it can be, this is ultimately a movie about loss, and the things people will do to avoid dealing with it. Inga hasn’t dealt with the loss of her son (Baldvin states at one point that it perhaps would have been better if Uggi had died in front of her), while Atli is struggling to come to terms with losing his family through his own stupidity, and Eybjorg is scared of losing altogether the chance of becoming a mother. Driven by these fears, and the grief that comes with them, each character fights their own corner, but without the understanding that their feelings aren’t exclusive, or that by concentrating only on themselves, that the tragedy stalking all of them will happen all the sooner.

Rating: 8/10 – with terrific performances from all concerned, and a grim, relentless intensity to the material, Under the Tree is impressively detailed when it comes to the various ways in which people rush to ensure that revenge can be eagerly justified – if only to themselves; unsparing and cruel in places, but fiercely intelligent and with a small measure of optimism to cling on to, it’s a movie that doesn’t pander to its audience, or offer them an easy way out from all the suffering of its characters.

Under an Arctic Sky (2017)

26 Monday Nov 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Chris Burkard, Documentary, Iceland, Icelandic winter, Isafjordur, Justin Quintal, Review, Sam Hammer, Storm, Surfing

D: Chris Burkard / 40m

With: Chris Burkard, Sam Hammer, Steve Hawk, Sigurdur Jonsson, Heidar Logi, Elli Thor Magnusson, Ingo Olsen, Justin Quintal, Mark Renneker, Timmy Reyes

For six highly regarded surfers, the chance to test their skill on a surfboard in the challenging waters of Northwest Iceland is a challenge that’s willingly accepted. Their timing might seem a little off though, as they arrive in Reykjavik during the Icelandic winter, and in conditions that none of them have encountered before – let alone surfed in. Journeying along the coast to connect with the ship that will take them to their planned destination of Isafjordur, they take an impromptu detour to surf some waves, and get the measure of the experience ahead of them. Once on board ship though, the advance of a storm that will come to be regarded as the worst in twenty-five years, forces the ship’s captain to turn back. But the surfers know that once the storm has passed, in its wake will follow some of the most breathtaking swells imaginable, and the opportunity to surf in a stretch of Icelandic waters that is almost virgin surfing territory. Aided by a group of their Icelandic counterparts, the six surfers decide to travel by road through the storm to reach Isafjordur, and those majestic waves…

Although only a compact forty minutes in length, Under an Arctic Sky is an engrossing, fascinating account of how surfing can truly be thought of as radical. A romantic’s idea of surfing might not stretch to its taking place in the depths of a bitter Icelandic winter, and at a location so isolated and inhospitable that the Icelanders themselves haven’t settled there, but there is a romanticism here that lends itself to the whole crazy endeavour. There’s a genuine spirit and sense of camaraderie between the men, all friends and mutual admirers, and their decision to surf the icy cold waters of Iceland’s remote Hornstrandir Nature Reserve. They’re also modern day adventurers, literally charting new territory in terms of surfing, and literally doing what no other surfers have done before. It’s inspiring, it’s incredible to witness, and it leaves you thinking that they’re all as mad as a box of frogs – but in a good way. Each time they take to the water, you wonder how they can stand the cold, especially as they’re warned at one point that hypothermia can set in in under ten minutes. Brave, foolish, mad, heroic? All of them? You decide.

But the key strength of the movie is Ben Weiland’s incredibly impressive cinematography. This is a documentary that features an embarrassment of visual riches, from shots of the snow-covered Icelandic mountains to the steel-blue waters that nudge against the Icelandic coast, and in the movie’s most powerful and uplifting sequence, the final, post-storm bout of free surfing, where Justin Quintal is framed against a backdrop of luminescent waves, while the sky above him ripples with the eerie glow of the Northern Lights; it’s simply awe-inspiring (and if you can, see the movie on the biggest screen possible – the image above doesn’t do the effect any justice). Directed with clear-eyed passion and verve, the movie leads up to this one moment, and the wait is worth it. Inevitably, the run time means we don’t get to know the likes of Quintal and Hammer too well, but this is a small price to pay when the rewards are so beautifully presented. Even the scenes set during the storm have a magnificent, rugged, terrifying beauty to them. In the end – and like all the best documentaries about a pastime that most of us take a pass on – it leaves you wanting to grab a board and hope that you don’t get raked over before you’ve even begun.

Rating: 8/10 – even if you’re not a fan of surfing, Under an Arctic Sky remains a compelling look at how the search for greater challenges can lead to the most sublime of experiences; guaranteed to impress purely thanks to its visuals, this is also a movie about a group of men who treat each other with unstinting respect and affection, and whose passion for their chosen sport is acknowledged with an equal amount of respect, and admiration.

Out of Thin Air (2017)

04 Tuesday Sep 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Disappearances, Documentary, Drama, Dylan Howitt, Elín Sif Halldórsdóttir, Hinrik Kanneworff, Iceland, Memory Distrust Syndrome, Murder, Review, True story

D: Dylan Howitt / 83m

Cast: Elín Sif Halldórsdóttir, Hinrik Kanneworff, Tómas Kolbeinn Georgs, Tumi Björnsson, Hjalti Steinar Guðmundsson, Arnar Hauksson, Steinþór Hróar Steinþórsson, Ingi Hrafn Hilmarsson, Trausti Örn þóróarson

On 26 January 1974, while walking home that evening, Guðmundur Einarsson went missing, and was never seen again. On the evening of 19 November 1974, Geirfinnur Einarsson also went missing, and was never seen again. Despite their surnames, the two men weren’t related. Two such disappearances in such a short period of time prompted public concern in the lack of progress that the police had made in finding the two men, or discovering what had happened to them. In December 1975, the Icelandic police arrested a young couple, Erla Bolladóttir (Halldórsdóttir) and Sævar Ciesielski (Kanneworff), on a minor charge. Erla confessed immediately to the crime she was accused of, but just as she was leaving the interrogation room, the police showed her a photograph of Guðmundur Einarsson and asked her if she knew him. She admitted she did, and when pressed about the night he disappeared, she told them about a nightmare she’d had in which Sævar and his friends were whispering at her window. The police seized on this, and over the ensuing year, Erla and Sævar and four others confessed to their involvement in the murders of both men…

Reviewing the case forty years later, Dylan Howitt’s absorbing documentary is a sober, and sobering, account of a miscarriage of justice that is shocking not just for the deliberate handling of the case by the police, and the methods they used to extract the confessions – one of the suspects, Tryggvi Liefsson, spent 655 days in solitary confinement – but the suffering those suspects endured for years after they were found guilty. Slowly, and with great attention to detail, Howitt reveals the deliberate nature of a police investigation that encompassed physical and mental torture, and where basic human rights were ignored. Much is made early on about Iceland being a country of very little crime, and of how peaceful it is. As the movie unfolds, that assumption is shown to be just that – an assumption – and in a patient, methodical manner that suits the material, Howitt strips away the veneer of respectability that the Icelandic authorities presented publicly. What remains is disturbing for the ease with which it all happened, and the concurrent ease with which the six suspects cooperated with the police in admitting to two murders where there was no physical evidence to sustain the belief that murder had even been committed.

This extraordinary situation begs the question, how could this have happened? Enter Memory Distrust Syndrome, where a person can be led to believe that something happened and they were involved in it, even if they weren’t; it’s like the dark side of the power of suggestion. This is the tragedy that strikes at the heart of the movie, as even forty years on, the likes of Erla and co-suspect Guðjón Skarphéðinsson (who both appear as themselves) still have trouble believing what is true and what was instilled in their memories by the insistence of the police. Hearing Erla express her lingering confusion even now over what she remembers as being true is dispiriting and sad, while the fate of Sævar is far more tragic. Howitt does an excellent job of threading the procedural reportage with strands of the personal that are both affecting and distressing, and the movie takes an observational stance, content to let the material speak for itself. The result is powerful without being melodramatic, and appalling in what it reveals about a police force, and a complicit wider community, that resorts to torture in order to solve two murder cases that were never murder cases to begin with.

Rating: 8/10 – quietly and diligently going about its business, Out of Thin Air not only highlights a terrible miscarriage of justice, but it also paints an affecting portrait of the lives that were ruined in the process; sincere, and peppered with some very haunting imagery, it’s a documentary that isn’t so easy to shake off – and nor should it be.

Non-Stop (2014)

11 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Air marshal, Bomb, Hijacking, Iceland, Jaume Collet-Serra, Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson, Lupita Nyong'o, Michelle Dockery, Ransom demand, Review, Scoot McNairy, Secure network, Transatlantic flight

D: Jaume Collet-Serra / 106m

Cast: Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore, Scoot McNairy, Michelle Dockery, Nate Parker, Corey Stoll, Lupita Nyong’o, Omar Metwally, Jason Butler Harner, Linus Roache, Shea Whigham, Anson Mount

Non-Stop – or the continuing adventures of Liam Neeson in action movie land – starts off promisingly enough with air marshal Bill Marks (Neeson) preparing to board a flight to London from New York. He looks a mess, he’s drinking, he’s obviously got problems, and he has a gun. Once the flight is underway, Marks begins to get text messages over the air marshal network, which should be secure. If the mystery person sending the texts isn’t paid $150 million dollars then someone on the plane will die every twenty minutes until it is. Marks thinks it’s probably some kind of elaborate practical joke, and challenges the other air marshal on the plane, Hammond (Mount) about it, but it’s soon made clear Hammond didn’t send the messages. He alerts the captain and the cabin staff as a precaution, and also his boss at the Transport Security Administration (TSA). Only Marks takes the threat seriously. As the first twenty minute marker nears, Marks finds himself attacked by Hammond (who, it turns out, is being coerced by the texter) and is forced to kill him, thereby doing the texter’s work for him. Marks also discovers that Hammond was carrying a briefcase full of cocaine.

With Marks attempting to keep Hammond’s death from the crew and passengers – and no one making any attempt to use the toilet Hammond’s body is in – the plot thickens as it’s revealed that the account the texter wants the money transferred into is in Marks’ name. With suspicion mounting against him, Marks attempts to discover the texter’s identity by checking the passengers’ cell phones. Some of the passengers take umbrage at this, particularly NY cop Reilly (Stoll), and communications tech White (Parker). When another murder takes place after forty minutes, Marks’ behaviour becomes increasingly more desperate as he attempts to locate the texter, alienating both the crew and passengers further, and as events unfold, putting himself in the frame for what is now being seen by the outside world as a hijacking. Even the TSA believe he’s gone bad. And when he discovers there’s a bomb on the plane, Marks must do all he can to save the plane and himself.

A movie like Non-Stop can be taken (no pun intended), in one of two ways: as a leave-your-brain-at-the-door-and-go-with-it type of movie that could end up being a fun ride, or as yet another dire attempt by Hollywood to provide thrills and spills but without any kind of focus on logic or credibility – still a fun ride perhaps, but one that coasts on its high concept and promise of seeing Neeson doing what he (currently) does best: kick ass. In either circumstance, though, Non-Stop is a let-down, a polished yet soulless piece of work that is, seriously, a real piece of work.

The fault here lies squarely with the script by John W. Richardson, Christopher Roach and Ryan Engle, which piles on absurdity after absurdity and never lets you forget that credibility isn’t an issue. As Marks gets ever more desperate to discover the texter’s identity, and he violates the passengers’ rights with ever-increasing enthusiasm, the script never pauses to wonder if there might be any actual protocols involved in dealing with such an admittedly unusual situation. When Marks tells everyone about the bomb and a “damage limitation” procedure, you’re not sure if the script has made it up or it does exist in the real world. Two fighters are scrambled to fly alongside the airliner and with instructions to shoot down the plane if it drops to 8,000 feet or below because then it becomes a civilian threat. But the plane is flying over the Atlantic and is being directed to land in Iceland, not exactly the most populous of locations. Two of the victims are killed by poison dart; neither could have happened in the way they do and the script doesn’t even challenge itself to come up with anything more clever; it settles far too often for a “well, this happens, and then this happens, and it just does” kind of approach.

When the texter’s identity and his or her reasons for doing all this are revealed, it’s such a weak excuse the viewer can only shake their head in dismay and move on to the rapidly approaching finale. It’s also a pretty woolly excuse, and delivered with all the earnestness and conviction of someone trying to explain why they’ve just done something so stupid they’re terminally embarrassed about it (like signing on to be the villain in Non-Stop).

As the script is so poor, and character motivations almost on the nearly extinct list, the cast fare badly, unable to do anything other than say the lines and hit their marks. Neeson tries valiantly to make his role work but he’s hampered by having to be a hero when it would have been so much more effective if there had been some real doubt as to his involvement in the hijacking. Moore is on hand to provide support as the passenger who never doubts Marks for a moment, while McNairy, Stoll, Parker, Metwally and others are trotted out as potential hijackers as the guessing game continues. Dockery, escaping from Downton Abbey (and maybe changing agents at this very moment) is only required to look shocked and surprised at various moments, while Nyong’o, after her triumph in 12 Years a Slave, is saddled with the role of stewardess-most-required-to-scream-and-panic-a-lot.

Collet-Serra directs with ambition and a certain flair, keeping the visual side of things interesting, and making good use of the cramped conditions. However, even he can’t make much of the dire script, and as a result, the cast suffer even further, some, like Dockery, seemingly cast adrift. The action sequences are casually brutal yet effective, though the crash landing at the end won’t be the best use of CGI seen this year. If there is to be a Non-Stop 2 – and we can only pray there won’t be – it will have to be a great deal better than this to warrant a return flight.

Rating: 5/10 – as a popcorn movie, Non-Stop just about makes it, but with serious reservations; laughable in places, frustrating to watch, and just too dumb for its own good.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)

15 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Ben Stiller, Cover photo, Drama, Fantasy, Iceland, Kristen Wiig, Life magazine, Review, Romantic drama, Sean Penn, Shirley MacLaine, Walter Mitty

D: Ben Stiller / 114m

Cast: Ben Stiller, Kristen Wiig, Adam Scott, Shirley MacLaine, Kathryn Hahn, Adrian Martinez, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Patton Oswalt, Sean Penn

Working as a negative accounts manager (responsible for photo negatives sent in by contributing photographers) at Life magazine, Walter Mitty (Stiller) has led a largely unremarkable life. Unmarried, with few friends, Walter is devoted to his job, but with the recent arrival of Cheryl Melhoff (Wiig) at the magazine, he finds himself smitten. Upheaval also arrives with the news that the magazine is being cancelled in favour of an online edition. Brought in to oversee the closure of the magazine and staff lay-offs, Ted Hendricks (Scott) picks on Walter, having caught him day-dreaming in the office. When noted photographer Sean O’Connell (Penn) sends in a series of negatives, with one being his preferred choice for the final cover, Walter is horrified to discover he can’t find it. With the final issue a matter of two weeks away, Walter decides to track down O’Connell and retrieve the missing negative.

Walter enlists Cheryl’s help in finding the elusive O’Connell. A clue leads Walter to Iceland, where a drunken helicopter pilot (Ólafsson) tells him O’Connell is heading via trawler to Greenland. He catches up with the trawler at sea but O’Connell has already left the ship. Arriving in Greenland, Walter learns that his quarry is headed for a local airstrip. As he gets there, O’Connell’s plane takes off… and a nearby volcano erupts. With no further leads to help him follow O’Connell, Walter is forced to return to New York. Back at work, he’s fired by Hendricks. Depressed, Walter visits his mother (MacLaine) who tells him O’Connell came to see her a few weeks before. She also provides him with enough information to help Walter decipher another clue he’s picked up during his travels. Travelling to the foothills of the Himalayas, Walter finally catches up with O’Connell and the mystery of the missing negative is solved.

From its trailer, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty could be mistaken for another comic fantasy à la Stiller’s Night at the Museum movies, but thanks to a sharply observed script by Steve Conrad, and a sure hand at the helm from Stiller himself, nothing could be further from the truth. This is not just an excuse for humorous fantasy sequences designed to prop up a patchy script, but a carefully thought out, intelligent, affectionate account of one man’s emergence from his own shell. Walter is a terrific creation, a recognisable person with recognisable hopes and dreams, and a genuinely nice man who’s self-confidence is only evident when he’s at work. His attraction to Cheryl is handled beautifully, his longing for a relationship played with adroitness and charm. And as Walter’s adventures bring him further into the real world, and away from the fantasy world he slips into so easily, the acceptance he finds from the people he meets brings him a series of personal rewards. By the time he confronts O’Connell, Walter is a changed man, able to deal with anything Life can throw at him (and which comes in handy when he later confronts Hendricks).

It’s a wonderful, nuanced turn from Stiller, subtle, skilful and affecting in equal measure, and a joy to watch. It’s a life-affirming performance, ably supported by a well-chosen supporting cast headed by Wiig, and Stiller proves a confident director, marshalling the disparate elements of the script with verve and evident ease. Penn is a great choice for the errant photographer, and Wiig adds several shades to a character she has played similar versions of before. The only false note amongst the performances is Scott’s but that’s because his character is written as an obnoxious prat from the beginning; it’s the script’s only misstep.

The movie is often gorgeous to look at as well, especially when Walter is trekking through the foothills of the Himalayas; as he walks along the top of one particular ridge the panorama behind him is simply breathtaking. But even amongst the offices of Life magazine, Stiller’s compositions are pleasing to the eye and far from perfunctory, a testament to the effort he’s made in presenting a movie that has a unique visual style throughout. He’s ably supported by cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh and editor Greg Hayden, and there’s a wonderful score replete with songs courtesy of José González.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is that modern rarity amongst Hollywood movies, an uplifting, feel good, life-affirming romantic drama that isn’t queasily sentimental or emotionally over-the-top, and which doesn’t outstay its welcome. It’s worth watching a second time for the subtle bits of business Stiller peppers the movie with, and for the pleasure of spending the best part of two hours with someone you’d be happy to call your friend.

Rating: 9/10 – a triumph for Stiller and his very talented cast and crew, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty deserves to be seen over and over again; a winning, multi-faceted experience that will keep a smile on your face for hours after seeing it.