Saga - 2008, Page 149

Abstract
b jörn æg ir norðf jörð
A HOMOGENOUS RENAISSANCE
Icelandic documentaries in the 21st century
In the century just begun, there has been a major boom in the production of
Icelandic documentary films. The article considers these new films in the 20th-
century historical context of Icelandic and foreign documentaries. Particular
attention is given to the subject, form and ethics of the recent films, analysing key
works on that basis. When analysing form, the article relies to some extent on
theories of the American film scholar Bill Nichols, who defines four documen-
tary modes: the expository mode, observational mode, interactive mode and
reflexive mode. Nichols's analytical approach considers each film's orientation to
its topic on epistemological and ethical grounds.
Icelandic films of the 21st century focus on the present. On those rare occa-
sions when the past is spotlighted, this is typically done in the hope of shedding
light on contemporary material. Documentary film subjects are divided into the
following four categories: 1) outsiders and well-known individuals, 2) daily life
in a particular location, 3) music and 4) multiculturalism or the evolving
Icelandic society. Films in all of these subject categories depend largely on scenes
in which individuals are recorded out in society, whether at work or play. This
explains why the observational mode has grown considerably in Iceland during
the 21st century and has become dominant, alongside the expository mode,
which basically had a stranglehold on Icelandic documentary until the 1980s.
The more recent formal developments, the interactive and reflexive modes
that have internationally transformed documentary production in recent
decades, have not had much impact on Icelandic documentaries. It is only in
films addressing multiculturalism and recent developments in Icelandic society
that a grappling with the documentary form itself becomes evident, along the
lines of the reflexive mode. In these films, innovation in form and topic come
together with few parallels in the history of Icelandic documentary.
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