Reykjavík Grapevine - 25.09.2015, Síða 53

Sushi Samba
Þingholtsstræti 5 • 101 Reykjavík
Tel 568 6600 • sushisamba.is
Our kitchen is open
17.00–23.00 sun.–thu.
17.00–24.00 fri.–sat.
Amazing
7 course menu
A unique Icelandic Feast
Starts with a shot of the Icelandic
national spirit “Brennivín“
Puffin
Smoked puffin with blueberries,
croutons, goat cheese, beetroot
Minke whale
Date purée, wakame and teriaky
Arctic charr
“Torched“ arctic charr with parsnip
purée, fennel, dill mayo
Lobster
Lobster cigar with chorizo, dates, chili jam
Reindeer
Reindeer slider with blue cheese, portobello,
steamed bun
Free range icelandic lamb
Lamb with coriander, pickled red cabbage,
fennel, butternut squash purée, chimichurri
And to end on a high note ...
Icelandic Skyr
Skyr panna cotta with raspberry sorbet, white
chocolate crumble, passion foam, dulche de leche
7.590 kr.

Things that once looked unassailable turned out not to be.
Everest must have seemed impossible to climb until one day,
two guys were standing at the top. Since then, hundreds have
gone up. Hollywood once seemed equally unapproachable
to Icelandic filmmakers. And now Baltasar Kormákur has
made it to the top.
Photo Universal Pictures
Words Valur Gunnarsson
Man Vs. Mountain
Or: The biggest film ever made
by an Icelander
21
He has had international hits before,
from Icelandic arthouse films such
as ‘101 Reykjavík’ and ‘Djúpið’ (“The
Deep”), to American-produced action
movies like ‘Contraband’ and ‘2 Guns’.
But this is the first ever Icelandic-
directed big-budget spectacle movie,
studded with stars and gorgeous 3D
shots. Inevitably, it takes place on a
mountain.
In some ways, ‘Everest’ is moun-
tain porn at its best, shot from a vari-
ety of angles. Just watching people try
to make it up there is exciting enough,
even before the plot kicks in. And yet
there is one thing here noticeably dif-
ferent from other movies about moun-
taineers. It really, really doesn’t make
you want to go up there.
Jason Clarke’s character is the ob-
vious hero, but with all those familiar
famous faces around, you can’t help
but wonder who will take on the role
of villain. Will it be the Republican-
voting Texan played by Josh Brolin,
the devil-may-care adventurer Jake
Gyllenhaal, the rather wimpy John
Hawkes or the Icelander-as-Russian
Ingvar E. Sigurðsson? A Frenchman
who quickly exits the scene comes
close, but the answer is: None of the
above.
While there is tension between the
leaders of the two expedition groups,
as depicted by Clarke and Gyllen-
haal, the film avoids any obvious good
mountain-climber/bad mountain-
climber dynamic. Mistakes are made,
but unlike most bad movie decisions,
these are not made by bad people for
selfish reasons, but rather by good
people wanting to give everyone their
chance. The true villain of the piece is
the mountain itself, and the film is all
the better for it.
And yet the mountain’s only crime,
as we know, is simply being there. And
even though the subject is broached,
we never really get any better reason
for going up. One character wants to
inspire his underprivileged students.
Another simply wants to challenge
himself. And upon their return down
sans noses or fingers—if they return at
all—it’s hard to defend their decision
to scale Mt. Everest as a wise one.
The film doesn’t really give an easy
moral, but rather gets on with the
business of showing humans fighting
for their lives on edges of cliffs. And
yet, there is a sense of rock climbing as
big business, of various tourist groups
getting in each other’s way, endan-
gering one another. Perhaps it is best
to just allow the mountain to remain
there in peace.
Around here, people have rou-
tinely frozen to death or fatally fallen
into cracks just trying to get from one
place to another. It was rarely done for
fun. Perhaps it takes an Icelander to
de-mythologize the extreme sport of
mountain climbing, while still making
one hell of a mountain film while do-
ing so.
FILM