Iceland review - 2007, Qupperneq 58

64 ICELAND REVIEW
Willowy Ingvadóttir f lits around the set like a humming-
bird, hovering over each of the four DV cams just
long enough to adjust its frame and tweak its white
balance before rushing off to fetch the makeup kit (a
clump of powder and cover-up in four tones). She is the muscle behind
the operation, involved in every aspect of production. But in a country
as small as Iceland, the notion of extreme multitasking is certainly not
foreign. Just as the mayor is often the harbor master is often the gas
station attendant is often the salsa teacher at the community center, so
is Ingvadóttir every crew member at the station, from producer, director
and camera man, down to makeup artist, set dresser and convers ational
f luffer between tapings.
But more so than the iron Icelandic will, it is technology that makes
the station possible. New editing software, digital recording equipment
and the dawn of webcasting mean that an entire network can be
carried by five people, four DV cams, some stage makeup, and an end-
less supply of microwave popcorn and es presso. The studio itself is part
Wayne’s World cable-access and part IKEA chic. Three sets have been
crammed into one room with the controls at its center in a makeshift,
Plexiglas booth. It seems more like a make-believe television studio
than an actual studio with wires heaped in a rat’s nest mess in front of
the booth. The sets themselves are shrines to sedate, Scandi navian
minimalism that speak to the refin ed and sober tastes of Ice land’s older
bourgeoisie, which appear to be ÍNN’s most likely demo graphic.
While providing the country with subject matter as nationalistically
pure as the driven snow, the work of the station is not entirely altruistic.
If Ingvi Hrafn’s angels know anything about broadcast product ion, it’s
how to turn a buck. Clever Fridjónsdóttir has made deals with furn-
ishing and home décor retailers to “rent” space on the sets: tables from a
local furniture store, magazines from a bookstore downtown, glasses and
a carafe from the design store around the corner. Even the long panels
that comprise the sets’ backdrop are also up for grabs as advertising space,
à la in-arena signage at figure skating championships and the Indy 500.
Today an episode of Klipptu kortid is underway, but since the original
guest cancelled, Helga Thorberg with her corona of teased, blonde
hair and wide eyes, has gotten an acquaintance of her sister to come on
the show. The guest, a woman in her mid-forties, has brought with her
a red lockbox, which she uses to handle all her finances. Where some
might use banks, this woman keeps her money in a box. With little
time to prepare, Thorberg must improvise the interview for the most
part, which ends up being an odd vivisection into an Icelander’s mind,
perhaps not entirely what was intended. The interviewee, who appears
normal at f irst glance, opens her lockbox to show Thorberg how she
divides up all her disposable income (after ironing the bills) into as
many envelopes as there are days in the month so she won’t overspend –
ever. Each envelope features a decoupage design on the outside: some-
thing along the lines of a garden theme, kittens, children with balloon
animals. The words “obsessive-compulsive” stand in the studio like an
elephant but no one acknowledges them. At first it seems Thorberg is
at a loss for words, but she gathers herself and continues to ask the wom-
an about her “methods,” straining through a series of forced questions:
no, she never drives to save the costs of maintaining a vehicle; yes, the
reckless way teens approach money these days is alarm ing. The end of
the half-hour segment comes as a relief to every one with Ingvadóttir
rushing out from behind the booth to unclip the cardioid mics and
brighten the mood with some light banter while everyone puts on
happy faces:
“Wasn’t that fun?” – “Unbelievably fun!” – “And so well decorated!” –
“Just a brilliant idea!”
Next Randver Thorláksson sits down with Sveinn Einarsson, an
elderly playwright and ex-director of the National Theater. The old
man is portly and sports the jaunty dress scarf and wool blazer requisite
for thespians of his age. Einarsson has already won his lifetime achieve-
ment award and is plodding towards the elephant graveyards while
host Thorláksson, though slightly his interviewee’s junior, was recently
asked to leave the cast of Spaugstofan, the sketch comedy show he had
been with for over 20 years, and is also quickly fading out of the
public’s eye more quickly than anyone would find comfortable. But
the two old hens perch on their roost pontificating about the meaning
of theater, trashing Italian television, and swapping stories from their
long lives on Iceland’s stages.
As these interviews continue – an aging dancer who makes pilgrim-
ages to Africa, a middle-aged journalist who has taken time off to raise
a child with her lesbian partner, a priest who preaches God’s word of
sex education to prove that the church has not become an anachronism
– it becomes clear that ÍNN isn’t bringing its audience the hot-button
issues of the nation as much as it is giving voice to the hot-blooded
characters of the nation otherwise left by the wayside.
The programming broadcast by ÍNN onto Iceland’s television and
computer screens is a mirror held in those places the nation is often
reluctant to look: the senescent generations, the immigrants, the public
personalities who have departed from public interest for one reason or
another, the deeply pious, the eccentric new-agers, the unheeded
naysayers, et al. This may not be the face that Iceland presents to the
world – the indie-music loving, international banking, eco-friendly,
Nordic bastion of progressive social values – but this is certainly not
the face of Iceland that cares what the world thinks. This programming
is sometimes clichéd, often lackluster and entirely Icelandic, which is
the only claim it set out to deliver. But as the Narcissus nation gazes
into its ref lection in the cathode ray tube, it remains uncertain whether
Icelanders will stay tuned or simply change the channel.