Reykjavík Grapevine - 21.09.2012, Síða 26

26 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 15 — 2012FILM
There is something about the strange
and perverse mind of director Hrafn
Gunnlaugsson that makes him ideally
suited to deal with the strangeness and
perversity of bygone times. Although
his 1984 film ‘Hrafninn flýgur’ (“When
The Raven Flies”) is not as perverse or
strange as his arguably undervalued
2000 film ‘Myrkrahöfðinginn’ (“Lord
of Darkness”), it has stood the test of
time as his most famous film to date.
It takes place in Iceland at around
the time of settlement. Yes, this is the
Viking Age, and we get many scenes of
big men trotting around the stunning
scenery on comically small horses. The
plot is deceptively simple. An Irishman
with sharp knives, but little in the
way of personality, watches his family
massacred by Vikings and sets about
doing them in one by one. Sure, you’ve
heard this kind of story many times
before, but there are a couple of twists
here that makes it revisionist, almost
revolutionary, historically speaking.
First of all, our hero is an Irishman,
and we are supposed to cheer for
him while he slaughters our raping,
pillaging, slave-holding forefathers.
They may have had it coming, but have
you ever seen a movie about, say, a
runaway slave getting back at abusive
founding fathers in the American
South? Didn’t think so.
The founding fathers here have a
healthy distaste for their new foster
land and would like nothing more than
to return to Norway. This is evident
when our hero frees a group of slaves
and tells them to go settle the land.
Thus, we are descendants of both
slaves and chieftains—neither of which
really wanted to be here in the first
place.
Second, the revenge itself allows
no simple solutions. Whereas the Hol-
lywood hero routinely kills everyone
who has wronged him and then rides
off into the sunset, having restored
peace, this hero’s revenge only breeds
more revenge and the stage is set for
the incessant murders that doomed the
Icelandic Medieval Commonwealth.
‘When The Raven Flies’ has aged
well and though Hrafn attempted
more complex takes on the Viking Age
in later epics, he never did it better.
Anyone with an interest in Icelandic
cinema (or Vikings) needs to go see
this. Hrafn himself will present the film
at a special screening in his own home
on September 30. It costs 1,000 ISK,
but even just a visit to his house itself,
no less a work of art than his films, is
worth the price of admission.
- VALUR GUNNARSSON
Laugarnestanga 65
105, Reykjavík30SEP FISHING was impossible. The river had been running big and brown for a
couple of days and as the rain continued
to lash down, hope was in short supply.
In the lodge, some of the fishermen
were getting stir crazy.
You might think that a dozen or
more keen salmon anglers could sit in
the lounge all night and remain enliv-
ened by stories of ones that got away
and some that didn’t, even when the
tales got largely repetitive or took on a
shaggy dog appearance. The older ones
maybe, but not the likes of young Hans
who hailed from Germany or Holland
or somewhere over that way.
Hans was of a different breed of
angler—restless, hungry for action, al-
ways on the move and oblivious to fine
sunsets. “There’s not even a decent pub
around here,” he lamented, and contin-
ued in that manner for quite some time.
“Well,” I said, eventually tiring of
it, “you could always try the Silver Slip-
per at Selfoss. It’s a 45-minute drive but
today’s Saturday so it should be buzz-
ing.” Hans perked up immediately and
demanded more information. “Gosh,” I
said, “it’s a year or two since I was there
but it was always full of women.
The club was, I recalled, kind of ret-
ro disco in outlook and design, Saturday
Night Fever all over again, stomping
the boards to the Bee Gees, KC and the
Sunshine Band, Gloria Gaynor, Donna
Summer, even the Village People for
God’s sake—the whole place awash
with liquor and laughter and, as the
night wore on, not a little licentious-
ness—all of it happening just behind
the Kentucky Fried Chicken joint on
the main drag.
The Bee Gees were the only folk
Hans had heard of but farmers’ daugh-
ters seemed to strike a chord. I regaled
him with ancient memories of wild
nights, of gorgeous girls and adven-
tures too far out for description in the
pages of a decent family newspaper or
even The Reykjavík Grapevine.
Anyway, he was as well hooked as
any salmon I’ve ever reeled in. A look
of great earnestness came over him and
he was quietly gone, clutching a rough
map I’d drawn of the location.
The next morning the sun was
breaking through and there was that
fresh, crisp smell in the air that often
follows rain. The river was in much bet-
ter shape and over breakfast we faced
the day with anticipation.
Hans arrived, disheveled. He looked
completely worn out. “I’ve just got
back,” he said hoarsely, draining a large
glass of water in one go. Guilt hit me
like a punch on the jaw. The poor guy
must have got lost and slept in his car
all night. I felt terrible.
You will, I imagine, have gathered
by now that the Silver Slipper at Selfoss
is entirely a product of my imagination.
It does not exist, but there is a Kentucky
Fried Chicken if that’s any consolation.
Over the years I have directed many
people to the doors of this illustrious
nightspot although Hans is, to my
knowledge, the first to have attempted
to find it.
“So what happened?” I asked cau-
tiously. He leaned over the table con-
spiratorially. “It was,” he said, “unbe-
lievable, absolutely fantastic, everything
you said it would be and more.” I waited
for the explosion, but his face was a pic-
ture of awe and innocence.
He told a long and elaborate story,
full of detail that need not be repeated
here and at the end of it he sighed:
“What a night.” No fishing for him this
morning, he said. What he needed was
sleep.
I was heading back to Reykjavík that
afternoon and didn’t see Hans again.
When I passed through Selfoss I slowed
for a moment, for a very brief moment,
at the KFC outlet and shook my head.
Impossible.
Ian Bain is a former foreign correspondent and media
consultant who has visited 70 countries and lived in six
of them.
Seduced By The Silver Slipper
At Selfoss
Icesave—is still unsettled.
Lack of foreign direct investment is a
great weakness of the Icelandic econ-
omy. ‘No wonder, in a country with
capital controls,’ someone might say.
But this weakness is much older than
the capital controls put in place in No-
vember 2008. Foreign investors find
Iceland difficult to penetrate if you don’t
happen to be born and bred in Iceland.
It’s not necessarily the lack of money
per se that poses problems—after all,
the Icelandic pension funds can only
invest in Iceland for the time being and
the country increasingly shows signs of
too many krónur chasing too few invest-
ment opportunities. Lacking are foreign
contacts, inspiration and know-how that
good investors bring along.
In any country coming out of a
“Kreppa” it takes some time before the
national psyche senses the positive
change and feels uplifted. Icelanders
aren’t necessarily convinced, though
foreign pundits are right to talk about a
“miracle.” The “Kreppa” mentality evap-
orates only when people sense that fam-
ily and friends don’t need to go abroad
for jobs, that companies are hiring and
that they and those they know can again
travel abroad once in a while. Anecdotal
evidence indicates that this might now
be happening in Iceland.
So far, the Conservatives in gov-
ernment with the Social Democrats
in October 2008 have profited by the
perceived lack of coherent government
policy. If the voters, however, sense that
the “Kreppa” has left Iceland it might
strengthen the two parties presently in
government, the Social Democrats and
the Left Green, in the election next year.
But in the global economy, no country
is an island, not even an island in the
middle of the Atlantic. Iceland isn’t en-
tirely dependent only on the fish in Ice-
landic waters but also on how much fish
and other goods foreigners can afford to
buy. The dark clouds hanging over the
European continent are now the greatest
threat to the remarkably sturdy economy
of Iceland.
- SIGRúN DAVíðSDÓTTIR
Iceland:
From A “Kreppa”
Basket Case To A
Miraculous Example
Continued
An Oldie But
Goodie Go
watch ‘When The
Raven Flies’ at
director Hrafn
Gunnlaugsson’s
house
Travelin light
The best Italian/Icelandic
restaurant in town!
Lækjargata 6B • 101 Reykjavík
Tel. 578 7200 • www.pisa.is
10%
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