101 Reykjavík

I have been thinking about the same thing last night: What is it that lots of people found incredible in this movie? How could they say "hilarious" about it? "One of the best examples of Scandinavian cinema", what?? What am I missing?

101 Reykjavík has been shown in the 20th Istanbul Film Festival in 2001 and it was a blockbuster that year. It won 9 B-class film awards and received 10 nominations, making the director Baltasar Kormakur's debut as a filmmaker a big success. I would consider myself a fan of movies and culture of the northern countries - intentionally avoiding the word Scandinavian here - and normally I am not disappointed with the results, so I guess the problem here was that I expected too much, way too much.

The film tells the story of geek-ish Hlynur (wonderfully act by Hilmir Snær Guðnason) who is almost 30, still living with his mother with no ambition in life and no desire to find it. He spends his days mostly sleeping or watching porn while at nights he goes to the same bar bumping into same people, drinking the same beer, smoking the same cigarette... I must admit that it is very well depicted how boring and depressing most young people in Iceland feel; for us looking at that country from far away it happens to attract our attentions with a great curiosity and yet, this is unfortunately not the case for those who were born there looking at the infinite ocean as if there is nowhere else but empty space beneath the horizon, after all, it is not the elves and not only beautiful landscape what this country is about. The ever-wealthy northern states provide the young (and all) with sufficient support and thus, they do not usually feel the need to find a challenge, which makes them ever-depressed. Add to this, the climate and long lasting darkness, and you will see what I mean.

However, this extremely bored young man's life changes all of a sudden when a light-hearted, fun-loving Spanish woman, Lola, enter his life as a friend of his mother's. As soon as she starts sharing her life with them, she questions Hlynur's reluctance towards life. A drunken night causes them to have sex - surprisingly a very good one despite Hlynur's normally not-so-good interactions with women - and this would trouble his mind; it would even get worse when his mother explains him her lesbianism, newly discovered in her love for Lola; and then twice as worse when Lola announces her pregnancy, no doubt from Hlynur, and she and Hlynur's mother decide to bring up the baby together - without the mother ever knowing the truth about the father of the baby.

101 Reykjavík is interesting in some aspects for its mixture of humour and drama does give some insight to a young man's struggle against the routines of life in a too normal place, however I would not describe it all as hilarious. Maybe it is because at many points in the movie I lost track of the time and thought that most of the important moments and sides of the story passed in an enormous speed while watching the same patterns without another clue again and again. A movie does not always have to be exact about time and space at every second but this one did not give me the idea as if it were made on purpose, to create a different ambience. It was mostly scenes popping after one another.

Even though my opinions on the movie are not that positive I would still recommend it, especially to northern movie lovers; apparently many find more in it than I ever did in the last 24 hours. I, too, will nonetheless pursue the movies by Baltasar Kormakur to see his progress as a filmmaker - without a great expectation this time.