Reykjavík Grapevine - 11.01.2008, Page 6

Celebrated Icelandic filmmaker Ragnar Bragason
has certainly kept busy. His 2007 saw the release
of Foreldrar (“Parents”), the sequel to 2006’s Börn
(“Children”) to great public and critical acclaim;
the début of a hugely popular TV series, Næturvak-
tin (“Night Watch”); as well as his overseeing the
annual “Áramótaskaup” comedy revue romp (more
on that later).
It doesn’t sound like you’ve been sleeping a
lot…
You’re always juggling ten projects at a time in
this business, as it’s hard to determine which will
come to fruition when you’re dependant on out-
side factors, like money. The last two years have
been kind of insane for me because a lot of the
projects I’d been working on became possible at
the same time.
Like with Börn and Foreldrar, we started
work on those in 2005, so a long time passed in
between when we shot them and when they pre-
miered. We gave ourselves plenty of time for post-
production, editing and the like. Since the project
was extremely low budget, eliminating the need
for investors who needed returns on their money,
we could take the time we wanted to make those
movies. It’s a little backward – the smaller the bud-
get for a film, the more time and freedom you have
to work on it. There’s no outside pressure.
I went without salary, pretty much, for the
two years it took to complete the films. We decid-
ed to produce them using a different system than
what’s usually done, so the actors and I founded
a company, a co-op, really. We decided to make
these movies communally, and not in the egoma-
niac-dictator style that film-makers often employ,
where the director is all-powerful.
We wanted to make films that mattered too,
and were the product of more people than just a
director or screenwriter. So the actors also served
as screenwriters and producers, and everybody
had a say about everything.
There are of course certain problems with
going without pay for so long. That’s maybe the
reason why I worked so much after we finished
shooting – in two and a half years I made two full-
length movies, 20 episodes of Stelpurnar [sketch
comedy show ‘The Girls’] and 12 episodes of Næ-
turvaktin [the TV sensation that Icelanders as a
whole fell in love with last fall]. That’s a lot of di-
recting in two years, and I used pretty much the
same crew through all of those projects.
You’ve been a filmmaker for nearly a decade
now, and there seems to be a certain aesthet-
ic thread running through your work…
My first flick, Fíaskó, was released in 2000. So
that’s a little under eight years I’ve been making
movies for a living. When I think about it, Fíaskó
isn’t that far removed from Næturvaktin… both
projects are realist and, at the core, human drama
straight out of Icelandic reality, but with a sort of
tragicomic undertone. I’ve always considered Næ-
turvaktin as drama, when we started work on the
project the idea was that the dramatic aspects of
the show would surpass the comedic ones. A real-
istic show, focused on people and human tragedy
in all its forms. It isn’t sitcom humour, we focus on
uncomfortable scenarios and the humour springs
from character flaws rather than jokes or punch
lines.
The humour represented in your works seems
to revolve a lot around drama and tragedy.
Were there times when you envisioned Börn
and Foreldrar as comedies, rather than the
tragedies they wound up being?
Yes, there’s an incredibly thin line between dra-
ma and comedy, and it’s evident that a lot of the
best comedies of all time could have easily been
turned into dramas, with a few simple nuances. I
don’t think anything can be really funny unless it
has drama at its core. All the best comedy stuff is
based on tragedies, and the best comics employ it
mercilessly. Peter Sellers, among others; his roles
usually depict human tragedy. Inspector Closeau
is a really tragic character, for instance, rather
dim-witted, unfortunate – a tragic individual. And
I find treading that fine line satisfying and fun – it
is the same path that life treads.
Did you have a hard time financing your first
project?
No. Actually it was incredibly easy. At the time I
made Fíaskó, a lot of money was going around
in Europe and all these funds were very open for
Iceland and Icelanders. Fíaskó was financed in an
incredibly short amount of time, and actually is
the most expensive project I’ve worked on.
I think Icelandic film directors have it pretty
easy compared to many of their colleagues over-
seas. We live in a community where doing stuff
– not just films, but all creative projects – is incred-
ibly easy. For instance, I think you won’t find as
many bands operating anywhere in the world;
releasing a record and gaining exposure, getting
people to help, is certainly simpler than in neigh-
bouring countries. This is a luxury derived from
the miniscule size of our society and there is a
certain unity at work, too. It’s easy to get people
to participate in whatever project and you are not
bound by endless rules and regulations. While
making a film abroad, you’ll have to acquire vari-
ous permits and the like if you want to shoot a
scene outdoors. Over here, you can just take your
video camera for a walk, and everybody you en-
counter will be ready and willing to help.
This isn’t the case in most places I know of,
so I think Icelandic directors that complain about
the lack of opportunity… I laugh at those com-
plains. If they don’t go through with their ideas,
it’s their own fault; it’s just so much laziness. With
the situation as it is over here for filmmaking, or
any kind of art, there’s nothing stopping you but
yourself, and if you don’t get that 100 million you
think you need to make your movie you just need
to rethink your strategy and go a different way.
The Grapevine has been getting enquiries as
to whether there are any plans underway to
release a Næturvaktin DVD with foreign lan-
guage subtitles. You seem the obvious person
to ask…
I thought it was really sad that the original DVD
release of the series wasn’t subtitled. It was awful
really, because, you know, somewhere I heard
that between 10 and 15.000 non-fluent Icelandic
speakers were living in the country. These are
people that want to live here and presumably
wish to learn the language and participate in our
culture. And a huge part of that is being able to
observe and understand whatever’s popular on
TV at a given time, seeing Icelandic movies, etc.
Subtitled materials help them learn the language,
and get a grip on the culture. It is a key for tun-
ing in on the zeitgeist, understanding the culture
and getting a grip on the humour. All art reflects
a certain atmosphere within the community and
culture from whence it springs, and it is important
that it should be readily available to anyone who’s
interested.
You seem to have an active interest in im-
migrant issues, as was evident in your han-
dling of the 2007 Áramótaskaup show [the
Áramótaskaup is a cultural institution in
Iceland that runs on National TV every New
Year’s eve before the fireworks display. It is
watched by something like 95% of the popu-
lation and aims to make light of some of the
preceding year’s issues].
Yeah, I think that Icelanders have a lot of pent up
racism and we... somehow it’s not acceptable to
talk about anything that concerns immigrants or
immigration. If a discourse starts, it’s somehow
killed off immediately. The truth is that we are in
no way ready to take in immigrants, as we are do-
ing absolutely nothing for them. They come over
here and basically carry our society – if they’d just
up and leave, all of them, then Iceland would col-
lapse completely. And we don’t appreciate that at
all. Instead, we let greedy bastards get away with
renting groups of immigrants ridiculously small
apartments at sky-high prices, never pausing a
moment to think of their rights. We need to accept
and celebrate the fact that we are living in a mul-
ticultural society, and try to better our community
accordingly.
And the final scene of Áramótaskaupið was
a kind of jab at the country, playing a music video
of Ísland er land þitt [“Iceland is your country”],
where every sentence starts with “Iceland is…”,
as performed by a group of immigrants in a fish
processing plant, where most people would like to
keep them doing the jobs we aren’t interested in.
Honestly, nothing angers me more than any kind
of nationalism or racism. People like to hold on to
their status quo, keeping a balance is a big part
of the human instinct, but it’s simply not possible,
and it’s also very dangerous.
Text by Haukur Magnússon
No Sleep, No Pay
“The truth is that we are
in no way ready to take
in immigrants, as we are
doing absolutely nothing
for them. They come over
here and basically carry
our society – if they’d just
up and leave, all of them,
then Iceland would col-
lapse completely.”
Director Ragnar Bragason enjoyed considerable
success in 2007. Unfortunately, success
leaves little room for sleep.
Photo by GAS
06 | Reykjavík Grapevine | Issue 01 2008 | Interview