Reykjavík Grapevine - 21.09.2012, Blaðsíða 26

Reykjavík Grapevine - 21.09.2012, Blaðsíða 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% Disc oun t of F ood FR U M

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