Reykjavík Grapevine - 25.10.2019, Blaðsíða 28

A Portrait Of A
Time And Place
Rúnar Rúnarsson disrupts traditional methods
of storytelling
Words: Tara Njála In!varsdóttir Photo: Matthew Eisman
Film
'Echo' premieres in Iceland on
November 19th.
‘Echo’ is comprised of 56 poignant
scenes presenting short stories,
emotions and atmospheres, all set
in Iceland between Christmas and
New Years. There is a birth, an old
farm burning to the ground, chil-
dren singing Christmas carols, a
daughter joining her father's new
family for the holidays, and trash
cans being picked up off the streets
of Reykjavík. The film captures a
portrait of a time and a place as it
presents its main character: mod-
ern society. The effort is acclaimed
filmmaker Rúnar Rúnarsson’s
third feature-film following his
award-winning ‘Sparrows’ in 2015.
Fragments of life
“I have always been quite fond of
Christmas as a background for
storytelling. It presents a certain
Richter scale for our human emo-
tions,” Rúnar says. “Normally, you
have some time to get to know the
characters of a film. In ‘Echo,’ we
don’t have that luxury. The time
period and our collective experi-
ence of the season helps to create
the relationships of the characters
to the audience.”
Each scene is shot on a tripod.
There is no traditional story arch.
Characters and locations don’t
appear twice, and the scenes are
not cut. It’s, perhaps obviously,
a rather uncommon way to tell a
story. This, however, was Rúnar’s
goal.
“Modern filmmaking focuses
so much on the traditional way of
storytelling. When
you cut the scene
you break time, and
when you break time
you create a verse,”
he explains, empha-
sising that ‘Echo’
breaks up this tra-
ditional model with
the intention of pre-
senting fragments
of real life. “What
I hope to achieve
in my films is that
every now and then
the audience forgets
that they are watching a film. With
‘Echo,’ I wanted to go further with
that.”
He pauses. “‘Echo’ is not as audi-
ence friendly on paper as my earli-
er work. When you read about it, it
sounds like its an installation in an
art museum so I wasn't sure what
to expect at the Locarno premiere
in August,” he says. “But it got the
best reaction I’ve ever had to any of
my films.”
Moments of luck
In the film, there is a particularly
memorable scene of childbirth. “I
thought we would have to shoot
many births until we got a great
birth that fit the form of the film,”
Rúnar shares. “There is, of course,
no cutting within the scenes.”
The birth took around 7 hours,
while the scene itself is around 2
minutes. “The midwives said af-
terwards that we were very lucky
with this birth. There is a lot of
luck involved when you’re making
films,” he explains.
“Filmmakers are always trying
to portray time in films, but time
can be your biggest enemy,” he lat-
er continues. ”Often filmmaking
is about capturing the moments
you cannot time. Our framework
of production allowed for us to
wait for the magic to happen.”
That magic is certainly found
i n h ow t h e f i l m
walks the line be-
t w e e n s c r i p t e d
performance and
d o c u m e nt a r y. “ I
had written a ful-
ly planned manu-
script,” Rúnar says.
“Some scenes are
scripted, sometimes
it was just an initia-
tion of a scene and
capturing what hap-
pens from there and
sometimes we were
just driving around
capturing moments.”
“Each of my films are a person-
al journey,” Rúnar concludes. “The
premiere in Iceland is such a nice
departure of many years of effort.”
Said premiere will take place on
November 19th at theatres around
Iceland. Stop by to experience the
magic of a singular moment.
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A rare shot of the director in front of the camera
“What I hope
to achieve in
my films is that
every now and
then the audi-
ence forgets
that they are
watching a
film.”
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