Reykjavík Grapevine - 21.09.2007, Qupperneq 12

RVK_GV_INFO_ISSUE 15_007_MUSIC_B7
Lárus & Lárus
Hey Lárus, did you fix
the breaks on the car?
No, I couldn't, but I
made the horn louder.
ALWAYS
NICE
Energy for life through forces of nature
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Magni is blessed with a great voice and he is a very
presentable guitar player. Unfortunately, he elects for
a take-no-chances, rather than a take-no-prisoners,
approach, so this is a rather uninspired, overproduced
paint-by-the-numbers pop-rock effort that sounds
professional but offers little of substance. In through
one ear, out the other, type of stuff. The tender ballad
If I Promised You the World, which has been in con-
stant air-play the last months, and a completely bite-
less version of Radiohead’s Creep are good examples
of his soft and safe approach. Most of the songs are
Magni’s own, apart from two covers and two older
songs from his earlier band, Shape. The highlight of
this album is a live cover version of Live’s When the
Dolphins Cry – the ultimate crowd pleaser – but sadly
the only song on the this album where the producer
could not run amok on his ProTools equipment, and
the only time that Magni fully uses his voice and lets it
escape from the scales. SBB
Magni
Magni
Jan Mayen came out in late 2003 with an outright
buoyant and breakable, yet catchy and melodic, self-
titled EP. 2004 brought to light their debut LP, an al-
bum that shook many trees and even caught the at-
tention of city counsellor Gísli Marteinn Baldursson.
“So Much Better than Your Normal Life” displays the
quartet’s development gracefully from being a gleeful
tour de force to a grown up entity that contains its
youth elegantly, not only as a band but as individu-
als. Their biggest growth might be the voice of singer
Valgeir Gestsson. The guitar work brings to mind the
duelling chemistry of Sister-era Sonic Youth and even
Thin Lizzy’s Gorham and Robertson with a murky twist
and held together by a greatly advanced rhythm ses-
sion. The album is also neatly crafted and includes
some out of the ordinary, but welcome, synthesized
sweetness. This album is so much better than a normal
rock album. BR
Chainlike Burden is the third LP release from the Ice-
landic hardcore outfit I Adapt. The band’s earlier re-
leases are long since unavailable and in great demand.
On Chainlike Burden, the band moves from the more
traditional high-octane hardcore, and slows down the
pace a bit, to create a slower and far heavier record
then the band’s first two albums. Still, it is the band’s
most consistent and solid offering, full of crunching
energy and the occasional sing-along. The recording
process took its time, and the band has made good
use of it. The production is excellent, although I believe
the vocals should have been higher in the mix. The lyr-
ics are introversive and dark, which creates a sombre
atmosphere. The highlights are Sinking Ship, a slow
and emotional bone crusher and Subject to Change, a
powerful screamfest for the kids. Solid stuff. SBB
I Adapt
Chainlike Burden
Soundspell is made up of five boys not old enough to
buy alcohol, the oldest one at 18 years old. On their
debut, counting 10 songs, they demonstrate unusual
musicianship for such youngsters. The songs are excel-
lent inde music a la Coldplay or Keane with a soft
piano playing a big part, but it is the angelic voice of
singer Alexander Briem that makes this stand out from
the average brit-pop sounding bands. The production
is good and the packaging professional. In fact this
does not sound like a debut at all, but instead a mature
work of art. A few of these songs will definitely make
it into daytime radio. Soundspell play Airwaves in Oc-
tober. A sure thing to check out. Recommended. PH
Soundspell
An Ode to the Umbrella
Jan Mayen
So Much Better Than Your Normal Life
Originally printed in issue #12
Reviews by Benedikt Reynisson, Páll Hilmarsson and Sveinn Birkir Björnsson
B6_RVK_GV_INFO_ISSUE 15_2007_FILMS
The fourth annual Reykjavík International Film
Festival will take place September 27 – Octo-
ber 7. Founded in 2004 by a group of film
enthusiasts and professionals with the goal of
creating an annual international film festival
in Reykjavik, RIFF has become the one of the
main cultural events in Iceland, with last year’s
guests exceeding 15,000 people.
Dimitri Eipides, programmer for the Toronto
and Montreal Film Festivals as well as the Thes-
saloniki Festival in Greece, was brought on
board to supervise the film selection in 2005,
and has worked with the festival since. This
year’s festival selection features nearly 100
titles from over 30 countries, with a focus on
new cinema. The festival’s comepetive category
is only open for first or second features from
directors who compete for the Golden Puffin.
Every year, the RIFF program has included films
on human rights issues. This year, the category
will be dedicated to films on the situation in
Iraq and panel discussions will be hosted in rela-
tion to the screenings. The festival’s program
includes an extensive array of documentaries
and special attention will be directed to cinema
in Spain. 25 years ago, German film director
Rainer Werner Fassbinder took his own life at
the age of 37 and a special Fassbinder retro-
spective is scheduled to celebrate his work,
in cooperation with the Goethe Institut in
Copenhagen.
Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki will accept
RIFF’s 2007 Creatice Excellency award. In his
celebration, RIFF will screen his “Finland-tril-
ogy” consisting of Drifting Clouds (1996),
the Oscar nominated The Man Without a
Past (2002), and Lights in the Dusk (2006).
Another guest at the festival this year will be
Czech director David Ondricek but his films
have never been screened in Iceland before.
This year, three of Ondricek’s latest features
will be screened. Ondricek will attend a Q&A
session after the premiere of his most recent
film Grandhotel. Leading actress Klára Issová
will also attend the screening.
Grapevine staffers put their heads together
to select a few interesting titles from the fes-
tival’s extensive program. It turned to be even
more challenging than getting five people to
agree on pizza topping, but this is what we
came up with. Obviously, it would be wise to
consult the more extensive program available
on the festival’s web page, www.riff.is.
Sigur Rós – Heima
In July 2006, musical group Sigur Rós began
an unexpected two week tour around Iceland.
The tour marked the end of a 13 month world
tour in support of their fourth album Takk...
Once details of the tour were available it was
decided to film all of the tour’s concerts, the
journey itself, the Icelandic people and Iceland’s
nature in order to make a documentary. The
footage has now become Sigur Rós – Heima,
a 94 minute documentary directed by Denni
Karlsson. The world premiere of Heima will
open this year’s on September 27.
Helvetica
The Helvetica typeface should be familiar to
anyone who has ever typed on a computer. In
fact, it should be familiar to anyone who has
ever lived in a city, watched TV, read the papers.
Helvetica is the most popular typeface in the
world and celebrates its 50th anniversary this
year. For this occasion, director Gary Hustwit
decided to make an independent documentary
about the origin, rise and world domination
of Helvetica. The film, which is both visually
beautiful, thought-provoking and entertaining,
was an immediate hit and has been screening
at events and festivals the world over. The film
is full of lively interviews with designers and
revolutionaries who analyse and elaborate on
how Helvetica has become synonymous with
modern life and surrounds us on all sides.
Control (Above, left)
Ian Curtis, lead singer of the legendary rock
group Joy Division, committed suicide at the
age of 23. By then, he had recorded two al-
bums with his band, gotten married, had a
mistress and fathered a child. Control is Curtis’
story of struggle with depression and alcohol-
ism from his teenage years until his death
one fateful Sunday night in 1980. But this is
also the story of Deborah Curtis, the woman
he loved and betrayed, and what she had
to go through. The screenplay is based on
her memoir. Samantha Morton is stunning in
the role of Deborah. Directed by renowned
photographer and music video director Anton
Corbijn, who approaches the subject with rare
subtlety. Corbijn worked as a photographer
and photographed Joy Division while the group
was active. His experience makes for a realistic
recreation of the late seventies and the aura
surrounding the group at that time. Control
is his first full length feature film.
Grandhotel
This latest of Ondricek’s films keeps up the
tradition of mixing together excessive humour,
strong characters, realistic material and a
unique style. The setting is an old hotel high
in the mountains where Vlasta Fleischman
works as a guard. He is an amateur meteo-
rologist and fantasises about flying away from
the hotel and thus escaping from his own life.
Obsessed with the weather, he is constructing
his own hot air balloon in order to follow his
dreams. The film revolves around different
characters living in or working at the hotel,
connecting in one way or another through
the protagonist. Grandhotel is a film that must
be seen on a large screen, as the hotel itself,
the surroundings and last but not least the
magnificent shots of the weather are among
the film’s strongest factors.
Iraq in Fragments
A triptych of life in a war-ridden country. In
the first part we follow an 11-year-old or-
phaned garage worker in Baghdad who fears
the world he lives in. In the second part we
are presented with the political uproar that
followed the U.S. army invasion as extremist
Shiites see that the moment has come to take
action against the Sunnis, who have ruled the
country for hundreds of years. The film’s final
part revolves around a family of farmers in
Kurdistan, which is perhaps the only region
of Iraq where “peace” still reigns. The film
is poetic, religious and brimming with subtle
allusions to Dickens and Shakespeare. Iraq
in Fragments received an Academy Award
nomination as best documentary of 2007, won
several awards at the Sundance Film Festival
and the Grand Jury Prize at the Full Frame
Documentary Film Festival.
Shotgun Stories (Above, right)
The backdrop of this modern minimalist West-
ern are the cotton fields and back roads of
Southeast Arkansas, but brothers Son, Boy and
Kid could just as well be born out of the old
Icelandic sagas. Their father was a violent drunk
who left his family without even bothering to
give the boys proper names. They grew up in
a bad relationship with their mother and had
no relationship with the father, who forgot
his former life, sobered up, became a devout
Christian, started another family and had four
new sons who all got fine names. The film
begins just after the father dies. When the
lost boys show up for the funeral to the latent
hostility of their half-brothers, past hatred boils
anew and an old-fashioned tale of revenge,
obligation and honour is unleashed.
Metamorphosis
According to medical statistics from the year
2003, an average of one in 4,600 people in
China wants to have a sex change, which is
about 280,000 people. With state owned hos-
pitals in big cities offering private sex change
operations since 1986, about 400 people in
China have made this dream come true. Al-
though they can officially change the sex on
their ID cards, they still face immense pressures
from society and tradition. Their greatest desire
is to be understood. This documentary is about
three transsexuals, whose lives and desires
reflect those of others in their community in
China, a community that deserves not only
acceptance but also respect.
For more info go to www.riff.is
Reykjavík International Film Festival Preview