Reykjavík Grapevine - 12.08.2016, Síða 47

Probably the most Icelandic mo-
ment in ‘Nói albinói’—and this
is a very Icelandic movie, about
Malt Extract, carrot cake, winter,
and depression—is the scene in
which our hero romances a girl by
teaching her to smoke cigarettes.
Indoors. In 2003. There is a town-
that-time-forgot quality to Bolun-
garvík as captured in Dagur Kári’s
domestic and international criti-
cal hit. Vinyl tablecloths still cover
kitchen tables, and the peak of
Bolafjall looms above everything,
icy-blue in the permanent twi-
light, deadening the spirit.
Played by French-Icelandic ac-
tor Tómas Lemarquis, Bolungarvík
high-schooler Nói albínói—“Nói
the albino”—in fact has alopecia
universalis, and he covers his shiny
head and hairless eyebrows with a
knit cap, though he wears trainers
and a Members Only jacket through
the depth of the Westfjörds winter.
He lives with his wobbly grand-
mother, who passes her days with
an inexorably progressing jigsaw
puzzle and curiously retro aero-
bics; his father, an alcoholic taxi
driver and huge Elvis fan, often
enlists him as a drinking buddy.
Dad’s advice about girls concludes
with an exhortation to please wear
a condom; Nói’s mother is nowhere
to be seen.
Nói is a willfully terrible stu-
dent, sleeping through class and
handing in blank test papers when
he bothers to go to school at all,
though he’s quick with a Rubik’s
Cube and often kills time in a used
bookstore (whose owner, wear-
ing a t-shirt emblazoned with the
words “New York Fuckin City,”
is the sceptical father of the gas-
station checkout girl Nói begins to
romance). Lemarquis gives a fan-
tastic performance, channeling
his natural charisma into expres-
sions of sullenness and simple joy,
and flashes of defiance, conveying
Nói’s burning desire for a better
life somewhere more meaning-
ful—or at least different. It’s no
wonder Nói eventually begins to
reenact the lyrics to his father’s
favourite song, “In the Ghetto.”
While so many indie films,
from all around the world, unfold
entirely in minor-key “quirky” or
“well-observed” touches of small-
town life, ‘Nói the Albino’ is ro-
bustly funny and achingly dire.
Writer-director Dagur Kári, mak-
ing his first feature film, stages
jokes expertly, with long takes,
wry cutaways, and apt block-
ing, and his comic flourishes are
grand, particular a set piece in-
volving a blood sausage bloodbath.
His invocation of small-town de-
spair is lofty and literary, with
rhyming motifs of Kierkegaardian
existentialism and gravedigging
(the Icelandic word for graveyard
is “kirkjugarður”), and a devas-
tating ending ripped from recent
Westfjörds history.
The film swept the Icelandic
Edda awards and received admir-
ing reviews abroad; Dagur’s sub-
sequent films, both Icelandic and
American, went on to play pres-
tigious festivals like Cannes and
Tribeca. It’s a running joke in the
Icelandic film industry that the
typical Icelandic film is about an
unfulfilled man, either brooding
or inept, in a crisis of inertia, usu-
ally in a remote place: think of the
recent ‘Á annan veg’, ‘Bakk’, or the
Westfjords-set ‘Paris of the North’.
But ‘Nói’ remains the definitive
version, and one of the best of all
Icelandic films.
How to watch: The film was released
on DVD by Palm Pictures (US) and
Artificial Eye (UK), and is available
to stream with English subtitles at
www.icelandiccinema.com.
SHARE: gpv.is/noi12
Words MARK ASCH
On a cold and gray Bolungarvík morn’…
‘Nói the Albino’
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FROM 1900 TO TODAY
OPEN EVERY DAY
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Sturlugata 5, 101 Reykjavík
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Movies Saga of Icelandic Cinema46
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 12 — 2016
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