Reykjavík Grapevine - 19.06.2015, Síða 24

24 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 8— 2015FILM
In the lobby at Háskólabíó at present,
among posters and standees for upcom-
ing CGI disaster epics and comedy se-
quels, is a cardboard carnival cut-out with
two ovals, for your face and your friend's
face, atop the bodies of the two main char-
acters of the new Icelandic film 'Rams'.
Step right up, folks, to the wild-haired,
woolly-bearded, lopapeysa-clad old men
nearly indistinguishable from the animals
at their sides! Show all your Facebook feed
the funny picture of you and your friend
posing as feuding sheep farmers from
North Iceland!
With its rural setting, proudly pro-
saic story, droll directorial style, and many,
many sheep—invariably to be seen doing
sheepish things, like bleating, and rumi-
nating, and humping other sheep—'Rams'
may, when described to the sceptical
viewer, seem a direly cute shade of local
colour, a quaint bit of
backcountry pageantry
for the cultural-export
market. But writer-di-
rector Grímur Hákonar-
son, making his second
feature and working off
a baseline of lived-in de-
tail, modulates the film's
tone skilfully, with dry,
drawling comedy barely
disguising a deep-winter
melancholy, and finally
melting away in an un-
abashedly lyrical ending.
'Rams' has jumped into Icelandic theatres
immediately following its triumph at the
Cannes Film Festival, where a jury headed
by Isabella Rossellini awarded it top prize
in the Un Certain Regard section, an hon-
our previously claimed by global arthouse
elite like Ousmane Sembène and Apichat-
pong Weerasethakul.
In the film's opening scenes, a re-
gion's annual ram competition is decided
on the slimmest of margins, with just the
thickness of their back muscles separat-
ing the winning ram from the runner-up,
descended from the same bloodline. The
respective rams' owners are also relat-
ed, and, if anything, even closer in their
brawny spinal fortitude. Gummi (Sigurður
Sigurjónsson) and Kiddi (Theodór Júlíus-
son) are brothers; they live on adjoining
farms, but haven't exchanged a word in
40 years. They communicate, when abso-
lutely necessary, by sending letters back
and forth in the mouth of a sheepdog—or
with a shotgun blast through a window, by
way of emphasis.
We're never told the source of their
feud—and indeed, one lesson of the Ice-
landic literary canon, going back to 'Njal's
Saga', and its chronicle of bloody, at-
tritional clan strife, is that feuds can be
self-sustaining, powered for decades by
nothing but their own perpetual motion
of grievance and retribution. The film in
its opening scenes echoes this logic, like
we've dropped in midway through an end-
less tit-for-tat.
The picture of each brother that Grímur
allows to emerge does, however, suggest
a backstory that's been fully thought-out.
Gummi waits in front of his microwave for
his dinner to ding, and cuts his toenails
over the bathtub with a pair of shears. His
demeanour is sour, reticent even with his
closer friends—indeed, Gummi's attempts
to keep people out of his house is the stuff
of deadpan and then increasingly frenzied
comedy as the film goes on. Kiddi is more
demonstrative, especially when he's been
hitting the hard stuff. He twice passes out
blind drunk in a snowdrift, forcing Gummi
to care for him in ways that foreshadow
the pathos of the ending—and also occa-
sion inspired slapstick sight gags.
The film's long-fuse rhythms allow
Grímur to milk laughs out of his under-
stated cast (human and animal), but can
also feel reflective, or even depressive.
Widescreen compositions emphasize the
sparseness of the human presence in the
film's landscapes, and low angles capture
the full weight of the grey skies. Tucked
under the highlands, in compositions
drained of colour, the brother's farms are
exactly the buildings you'd use for scale
when taking your own pictures of remote
Icelandic farming country, and trying to
capture the desolate majesty of it all.
The film's interiors also have a similar
evocative, unshowy familiarity—check the
can of Ora green peas used for a Christ-
mas dinner, or Gummi's plaid shirt with a
rip at the elbow, which,
unsuitable for work, has
been downgraded to his
indoor wardrobe. If the
story feels timeless, that's
in large part thanks to
the production design,
which stays faithful to
the unostentatious cosy-
functional aesthetic of
rural Iceland—the trucks
are the only things on-
screen that clearly come
from this century.
That said, the con-
cerns of the plot are very contemporary.
The bull-headed self-reliance of rural Ice-
land's “independent people” is one of its
culture's great themes. But the romantic
stubbornness of this archetype has only
become more complicated, more quixotic,
as the Icelandic economy turns its eyes
away from the interior and towards the
rest of the globe. The brothers of 'Rams',
so thick-backed in their feuding, are also
resistant to change in their lifestyle, hold-
ing out as the independent sheep farmers
they've always been, despite the financial
and existential difficulties of maintaining
such a lifestyle in a small, spread-out com-
munity that loses members to the South
every year. Iceland's rural heritage, and
its viability in the present day, has been a
subtext of several recent films here, from
the earthy burlesque of ‘Of Horses and
Men’ to the lonely goth wail of ‘Metal-
head’. Here, Grímur makes it very much a
subject: the plot forces Gummi and Kiddi
to interact when circumstances threaten
to wipe out their stock, the last of the line
inherited from their father.
The brothers' connection to their
sheep—Gummi talks so lovingly to his prize
ram, using endearments you suspect he's
never said to another human—is touching,
and the subject of some of the film's raw-
est emotion; it's also so closely intertwined
with the story's interpersonal drama in a
way that recalls Bergsveinn Birgisson's
2010 Nordic Literature Prize-nominated
novel 'Reply to a Letter from Helga', written
in the voice of a man who stayed behind
with nothing but his sheep for company. In
1980, Sigurður Sigurjónsson starred in the
first production of the Icelandic Film Fund,
an adaptation of Indriði Þorsteinsson's
novel 'Land and Sons'—he played a farmer
in North Iceland who sells the family farm
and moves to the city. His career comes
full circle in 'Rams', a story of a man's two
sons sticking it out on the same land. The
film's subjects, nature and blood, are at
once the humblest imaginable, and the
most implicitly poetic.
York: My American opponent is going to
attempt to persuade you that intermissions
are either bad or unnecessary. She will
talk about the moviegoing experience and
she’ll reference some misery-porn movie,
something mentioning the Holocaust most
likely. Her arguments come from a corpo-
rate American lens: one that NOT ONLY
belittles but is ALSO condescending to the
non-American moviegoer. We don’t like to
be rushed in and out—forced to power
through movies of serious length with-
out time for reflection or refreshments.
Next she’ll be promoting inflated popcorn
prices, a strategic cash grab when there is
no intermission for refuelling. With an in-
termission, you can buy less and eat when
you’re hungry—not incessantly for no rea-
son like our American counterparts.
The real issue is about respect for both
the audience and the movie. The movie
isn’t meant to be casually viewed while in
a sugar coma. The movie isn’t meant to be
sacrificed for urinary discomfort or mus-
cle cramping. You’re a living person with
needs and a theatre with an intermission
doesn’t aim to take those from you for eco-
nomic benefit. We’ll keep our bathroom
break… at least we’re less full of shit.
The American dream is dead when a
person can’t have a smoke break while
watching 'Mad Max'. The factory-floor ap-
proach to business is fine for the American
automobile industry (it’s doing SO WELL),
but Henry Ford’s brainchild has no place in
the arts. We’ll keep our break.
Hannah: Last weekend I sat in the movie
theatre, wholly engrossed in watching the
bad bitches of ‘Mad Max’ drive through a
post-apocalyptic wasteland. I was at the
climax of my feminist voyeur fantasy, about
to totally break free from the bonds of the
patriarchy, when, without any warning, the
screen went black and pop music started
playing. I was like, “This is a weird direct-
ing choice.” But everyone started getting
up. What the fuck? I then learned that
Iceland’s movies have intermissions. As an
articulate cinephile, all I can say is that this
is the worst idea ever.
The film intermission completely takes
you out of the moment. I’m going to start
this argument with a hypothetical situa-
tion: take any movie, hm, for this example,
let’s say ‘Schindler’s List’ or something.
Now please tell me where you think the
appropriate place for a little break in that
is. You know —where’s the moment where
it’s time to go buy some more M&Ms, gig-
gle with your movie-date, and check your
Facebook? C’mon!
Think about it: would the moment
when Oskar Schindler tearfully offers up
his gold pin for another two to three Jews
be so powerful if you had just sat back
down in your seat after checking your ex-
girlfriend’s Snapchat story? The answer is
no. You’d be like, “Wait, why is he crying?
Oh yeah, the Holocaust, forgot about that.
Shit, Sally is such a slut!” Case closed.
Words
Mark Asch
Photo
Magnús Andersen
Words
York Underwood, Hannah Jane Cohen
Grímur
Hákonarsson’s
‘Rams’
Should There Be Intermissions
During Movies?
York Underwood vs. Hannah Jane Cohen
HáskólabíóEvery day at 17:30Rams
York: Predictably my American oppo-
nent will focus her energy on attacking
me personally, ad hominem.
In my opening statements, I men-
tioned respect for the audience and the
freedom of choice the intermission gives.
Another important factor is biology: you
can’t focus intently for more than 45
minutes. The MIT Center for Academic
Excellence states “that changing gears
frequently increases the amount of infor-
mation absorbed, 45-50 mins followed by
a ten minute break for the best results.”
Any argument that doesn’t take into ac-
count the science behind information ab-
sorption is merely conjecture. The facts
don’t lie, unlike my opponent.
Hannah: Ok, moving away from the Ho-
locaust (but good prediction buddy)…
My opponent argues that I am a “cor-
porate American” looking for a “cash
grab.” Cash grab? Movie tickets here
are 1,300 ISK (10 USD), while the aver-
age movie ticket in the United States is 8
USD. Intermission = longer time in the-
atre = more $$.
Also, eating less? Hell no. The person
next to me bought a large popcorn pre-
film and a soda and candy at intermis-
sion. That’s 2,000+ kcal and like 2,000
ISK. If Icelanders want to remain svelte
and rich, they need to 86 the intermis-
sion.
And stop using the pronoun “we”—
you are Canadian, not Icelandic. Who the
hell are you speaking for?
York: The intermission increases the ex-
perience for the moviegoer. Going to the
movies in America means sitting next
to someone without speaking for two
hours when it should be a chance to cre-
ate memories. The type of movie should
dictate the intermission: some movies
should have more than one.
Hannah: You know what? I don’t care
what MIT says. We (yes, WE) all know
the feeling of being lost in a film for more
than 45 minutes and leaving a changed
person. An intermission is like a fucking
hatchet to that magic. Movies are vehi-
cles for escapism and apotheosis. Don’t
kill that beauty.
Next Argument:
Opening Statement
Final Statement:
GR
A
P
E
VI
NE DE
B
A
TE
In Iceland, movies have intermissions. Some people love them; other people hate them.
We have two Grapevine contributors weigh in. The format is simple. Each writer gets 250
words for an opening argument. The writers don’t know what the other person wrote until
they hand in their opening argument. The writers then write a response and hand it in.
They get to read each other’s responses before writing their closing statements.
They are competing to be the most profound, persuasive, and polished.
You decide who wins.
FILM
REVIEW
“The brothers' con-
nection to their
sheep—Gummi talks
so lovingly to his
prize ram, using en-
dearments you sus-
pect he's never said
to another human—is
touching…”