Reykjavík Grapevine - jul. 2020, Síða 32

32The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 05— 2020
Ma! They Made A
Movie About Us!
‘Eurovision Son# Contest: The Story of Fire Sa#a’
stares deep into Iceland’s collective soul
Words: Sveinbjörn Pálsson
Photos: Courtesy of Netflix
Years back I had a Croatian girl-
friend and flatmate. In our explo-
ration of the two national psyches,
we found that we shared certain
affectations typical of smaller
European nations, namely hand-
ball—a sport larger countries
overlook, making it easier for us
to succeed in—and Eurovision.
Most larger western European
countries care less about Eurovi-
sion—the UK among the least. It’s
understandable—the country has
such easy access to music exports
that competing in a podunk com-
petition beloved by weirdos isn’t
the unique platform to Brits that
it is to more emerging countries,
such as Eastern European na-
tions.
As such, it isn’t surprising that
BBC arts critic Will Gompertz
found reason in a recent review to
contrast Netflix’s newest Iceland-
set film, ‘Eurovision Song Con-
test: The Story Of Fire Saga’ with
Ragnar Kjartansson’s fine art.
That’s the sort of thing that a fine
arts critic would like.
PLAY JA JA DING DONG
The review was widely shared and
derided in Iceland. The bold as-
sumptions he put forth in defence
of his fantasy view of Iceland and
us Icelanders starkly contrasted
our innate self-knowledge that we
are, among other things, a shit-
hole in the middle of nowhere
with nice scenery, and an urban-
ity that really only started a few
decades ago.
Will Ferrell’s Lars Erickssong,
the movie’s protagonist, is a car-
toon character of an Icelandic art-
ist. A type found in many under-
populated areas of the world, he’s
the single-minded weirdo that
eschews the rat race to follow his
passion, with limited success. We
meet him first as an adult chasing
his life-long dream to be a Euro-
vision star, but he hasn’t made it
further than gigging in his home
village. His attempt at introduc-
ing his neighbours to his Eurovi-
sion-esque stylings are repeatedly
met with violent reactions—all
they want is the German-sound-
ing 70’s Schlager banger “Ja Ja
Ding Dong.” Such is the fate of the
small-society artist. Adapt or not,
you inevitably end up broke and
underappreciated.
His love interest, Sigrit Er-
icksdóttir (Rachel McAdams) is a
faithful rendition of the Icelandic
Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Although
her relative lack of artistic inde-
pendence reeks of Ferrell’s Amer-
ican-esque writing, she is, in a
way, every Icelandic hippie, and
even though her elf-conjuring in
the countryside doesn’t feel famil-
iar—she’d be at a cacao ceremony
these days—she rings pretty true,
all in all.
Pierce Brosnan’s Handsome
Dad similarly manages to draw up
a rougher, but truer caricature of
men of that generation than I’m
used to seeing in the media. Usu-
ally they are idealised self-por-
traits made by Icelandic directors
and writers of that generation,
attempting to make themselves a
bit more interesting and a bit less
repressed. More saving the day in
the wilderness; less sitting in a
bar being kind of a grumpy dick.
Will Ferrell, Iceland
whisperer
Much has been written about
historical inconsistencies in the
movie. A common take is that they
were drinking beer in 1974, when
it was only legalised in the late
80s. As the son of a sailor, I can
attest that smuggling was a com-
mon business back then so beer
wasn’t too hard to come by. The
competition wasn’t broadcast live
here until in the early 80s, but they
showed clips from the contest on
TV much earlier. Reading news-
papers from the time, there was
much interest in the competition.
But if you zoom out, how fucking
weird is it that we are fact-check-
ing parodies now?
A favourite scene was the
meeting on national TV attended
by head of the central bank, pro-
moting the idea that Eurovision
is held in such high esteem here
that every mover and shaker in the
country would attend such meet-
ings—especially the part where
every mover and shaker is a grand
total of 12 people.
The Honest Truth
The plot is dumb. The characters
are two dimensional, and the por-
trayal of the Eurovision contest
is wildly unreal and simplistic.
In its essence then, the movie is
a faithful, loving rendition of the
contest, completely capturing
its spirit. This movie, as well as
the contest, is both garbage and
amazing. Any heights it does not
reach, it does not aspire to. Even
the villain, Russian contestant Al-
exander Lemtov, is an anti-villain.
He’s just a little bit in the way, but
totally understandable.
Icelanders almost unanimous-
ly love the movie (with only a few
stickler hold-outs doing a Hand-
some Dad impression on Face-
book.)
So the only real blowback
comes from the BBC. The Brits.
The Eurovision haters. In their
long-held disdain of this camp
symbol of European unity, the
seeds of Brexit are clearly vis-
ible. We’re none too pleased with
their condescending defense of
the imaginary Icelander, but in
the immortal words of Alexan-
der Lemtov, “Everybody hates the
U.K., so zero points!”
Film
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