Reykjavík Grapevine - 29.07.2016, Qupperneq 46

“Ó borg mín borg,” sings Björk
over the end credits of 1992’s
‘Sódóma Reykjavík’—“Oh city, my
city.” The film’s end credits play
over a helicopter shot (an unlikely
flourish for a low-budget Icelan-
dic comedy of the early 90s) that
travels across the still not fully
filled-in sprawl of the suburbs,
and into the heart of downtown.
It flies from the then fairly newly
erected Euro-style tower blocks
of Breiðholt, one of the city’s larg-
est and densest postwar suburban
developments, across the still-bu-
colic Elliðaárdalur valley, slashes
of asphalt, modernist bungalows,
and finally down Laugavegur, the
city’s ancient, dingy but still bus-
tling commercial center, out to a
Harpa-less harbour.
‘Sódóma Reykjavík’, which was
among the first Icelandic films to
play at Cannes (in Un Certain Re-
gard), is by common acclaim the
most successful of a number of
early 90s films in which a rising
generation of urban filmmakers
began to celebrate and examine
the way people, particularly young
people, lived in the city. The god’s-
eye-view of the film’s end credits
comes after a full immersion in
the farcical maelstrom of Reykja-
vík at night.
Axel (Björn Jörundur Friðb-
jörnsson) is a hapless mechanic
who must find his mother’s remote
control, or else, she threatens over
the phone, she’ll pull the plug out
of the bathtub where he keeps his
goldfish. Axel’s quest first leads
him to his spike-haired, dismis-
sive sister’s punk friends (played
by members of the band HAM, in-
cluding future MP Ottar Proppé,
and Sigurjón Kjartansson, later
Jón Gnarr’s comedy partner and
the writer of ‘Trapped’, who com-
posed the buttrock soundtrack).
But when it transpires that the
remote control melted in a fire
(which Axel puts out with a pot
of soup), he’s drawn deeper into
the criminal underworld, over the
course of a single dusk to dawn
that will feature encounters with
Hafnarfjordur bootleggers, and
a shady nightclub owner and his
bumbling bouncers (inexplicably
dressed as Roman centurions for
much of the film, with anatomi-
cally correct breastplates). There’s
a kidnapping, threats of gangland
violence, and even a car chase,
though it ends when one of the
cars stops for a red light.
‘Sódóma Reykjavík’ is known
in English as ‘Remote Control’,
though as with ‘Stella í Orlofi’
(see Issue 11, 2016), it seems more
natural to use the Icelandic name
for a film that’s known to every
Icelander and almost no one else.
The bar currently called Gauku-
rinn was known as “Sódóma” in
a previous incarnation, after the
nightclub where much of the film
takes place, a den of iniquity, head-
banging sludge-metal, and terrible
homebrew. (Meanwhile, the nearby
bar Dúfnahólar 10 is named after
Axel’s home address in a Breiðholt
tower block, where the film reaches
its madcap conclusion.) The idea
that this boring fishing town could
be any kind of Sin City is very much
the joke of ‘Sódóma Reykjavík’, in
which aspiring gangsters dream
of forming a criminal organization
called M.I. (for “Mafia Iceland”).
But the film’s depiction of frac-
tured families and chance encoun-
ters, of bored overgrown kids fill-
ing their leisure time with booze
and fireworks, shows an authentic
fascination with the specifically
urban lifestyle developing in 101
Reykjavík.
How to watch: Available to stream
with English subtitles at www.ice-
landiccinema.com.
SHARE: gpv.is/stella
Words MARK ASCH
A hapless young mechanic must find his mother’s
remote control in early 90s Reykjavík nightlife:
‘Sódóma Reykjavík’
Movies Saga of Icelandic Cinema46
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 11 — 2016
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