Iceland review - 2002, Qupperneq 51

What is the best movie ever made? Without a doubt, ET by
Steven Spielberg, or the greatest story ever told. For a long time,
the film has been identified with the passion of Christ, and I
agree with that interpretation.
Which directors and actors always get you to the cinema? The
directors are quite many...Woody Allen, Robert Altman and Emir
Kusturica, but actors not as much. Well, I never miss anything
with Billy Bob Thornton.
Film-making is usually surrounded with glamour. Is it as fasci-
nating as it seems? Film-making is not unlike fishing, which
always costs you a lot of waiting time. If one is patient enough
and hard-working, one will succeed.
I sometimes find Icelandic films misleading, like when the camera
jumps from one part of the country to another in the same scene.
No, see, you don’t make movies for those two thousand souls
who think like that, but for those who forget both time and
place when watching a good movie. When Ikingut was aired on
television in China, over 600 million people watched the film. I
think those 600 million couldn’t care less if Snæfellsjökull glacier
(west Iceland) is cut into the environment of Stödvarfjördur town
(east Iceland).
But are Icelandic movies credible in their delineation of the
Icelandic characters? Yeah, yeah, one can find it all if one looks
for it; there really is no falsification going on, except for it maybe
not being as hot in the bars or as much fun as the films show. But
at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter at all. The movie world is
for the audience to either approve or reject.
Icelandic humour is both cunning and sometimes bizarre. Can
foreigners relate to this? Yes, absolutely, but countries have, of
course, very different humours. That was very visible to me when
I watched Angels of the Universe in different countries.
Icelanders had a good time and laughed hilariously the whole
time, but in Germany and in Scandinavia, where insanity is a
taboo and it is forbidden to make fun of mental illness, people
sat in silence or were crying the whole time. Then I sat in a
crowded cinema in China where the Chinese audience laughed in
exactly the same places as the Icelanders.
Fridrik Thór spoke to Thórdís Lilja Gunnarsdóttir.
ICELAND REVIEW ´S GUIDE TO CAPITAL LIVING
Different Opinions
Icelandic director, Fridrik Thór Fridriksson, admits it is tricky to direct the Icelandic
falcon. He learned this first-hand while making his newest film, Falcons, about an unfortunate
couple who smuggles falcons to Germany. Premiering in Iceland this fall, in the leading roles
are Icelandic actress Margrét Vilhjálmsdóttir and American actor Keith Carradine.
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