The curious parking techniques and fashion-forward outfits are just a few ways Iceland is sure to leave an impression on an outsider.
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Airline passengers who passed through Keflavík International Airport last month increased significantly compared to August 2009, by 11.7 percent. Last month, 274,600 people passed through the airport.
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Click on the picture to watch an audio slideshow of a hike to Hraunsvatn lake in Öxnadalur valley in north Iceland, which lies at a height of 490 meters, interlocked between two steep mountains and a small glacier with a view of the majestic Hraundrangar peaks.
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Fjallabyggd (“Mountain Settlement”) is a skier’s dream. Its slopes are perfect for slaloming and there are also tracks for telemark skiing. Winter sporting enthusiasts can also go ice skating or rent snowmobiles. In summer, Fjallabyggd turns into a paradise for hikers. Read this special promotion about one of Iceland’s best hidden gems.
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super 8 film
Welcome to Iceland Review Online's review section. Guest contributors and staff writers will provide you with a new review every Monday about a current art exhibition, a new Icelandic film, an album recently released by an Icelandic band or a new Icelandic novel likely to be published abroad. Please email any comments you might have to the web editor: eyglo@icelandreview.com.
Review by Alana Odegard.
I hadn’t heard too much about the film Future of Hope before I attended the premiere last week. I assumed it was about the banking crisis, but then a friend told me she thought it was about preserving the country’s natural resources.
As it turns out, we were both right.
Future of Hope is a film about sustainability not only in the way it applies to the environment, but also about how it relates to the economy.
As stated on the official website, the film is a “character driven documentary following individuals that strive to change the world of consumerism, a system of credit and debt that the Icelandic economy was built upon for the past 10 years or more.”
An entertaining animated introduction takes the viewer through the history of Iceland, right up to the present day. Among the subjects addressed in the film are becoming hot topics these days: consumerism, sustainability, going organic and the need for renewable resources.
These are all discussed within the framework of Iceland in the sense that the film delves into how Iceland can be thought of as a model or “test” for the rest of the world in terms of how to make changes away from consumerism (learning when enough if enough) and towards a new way of thinking and acting.
Icelandic academics, activists and politicians are among those interviewed, including former President of Iceland Vigdís Finnbogadóttir and current Minister of Education and Culture Katrín Jakobsdóttir.
A few Icelandic start-up companies are also profiled, as well as the intriguing House of Ideas. The bottom line: this crisis can be the mother of innovation.
There was a lot of talk in Future of Hope about how now more than ever Icelanders need to return to the core values they had turned away from in the years leading up to the crash as well as the need to protect the country which has been passed down to Icelanders from their forefathers.
There is a message present within the film that wavers between nationalism and the idea that we are all members of the same global community. Frankly, at times I was left feeling confused.
Am I supposed to be thinking locally or globally? Some people in the film said we should act locally and think globally, others championed the idea of a global village and there was also talk of the importance of local communities.
I’m not saying that these two ideas are mutually exclusive (nor do I think the film was saying that either), but at least for me, these concepts were a little fuzzy. What was intended to be specific to Iceland versus what applies to the rest of the world was at times lost on me.
Parts of the film were unmistakably Icelandic, such as the interview with an Icelandic entrepreneur who opened a restaurant and spa, taking a loan from the bank for ISK 70 million (USD 596,000, EUR 462,000), if my memory serves me correctly, to do so.
His business was successful and he had paid back ISK 30 million of his loan before the crash, but now, post-crash, he owes more than ISK one hundred million because of indexation.
He explained that with no help whatsoever from the bank, he was paying back what he could, but that he may just stop paying the bank all together.
Looking into the camera, he gave the bank a “good natured” middle finger and the cinema, which was packed on opening night, erupted into applause. Clearly people welcome the idea of taking matters into their own hands.
Indeed, the film also touched upon the importance of democracy and critical thinking.
Something else worth mentioning is that the documentary is almost entirely in English, meaning the Icelanders who make up the majority of the interviewees all speak in English (rather than answer in Icelandic with English subtitles, as is usually the case).
This language choice really conveys the feeling that the movie is trying to spread its message beyond the borders of Iceland.
However, they may want to consider adding English subtitles before its international release because the Icelandic accent of some of the people interviewed makes their English difficult to understand at times.
The idea that Future of Hope is an Icelandic film with worldwide aspirations is reinforced by the fact that it is directed and filmed by Henry Bateman, a non-Icelander.
Upon leaving the theater I overheard a conversation in Icelandic between two men who had just seen the film.
One of them was telling the other that he thought the film was great and was flabbergasted by the fact a foreigner had made it. “This is something we should have been doing,” he said.
I couldn’t help but think that this film does mark a turning point in Iceland. For so long there was a pulsating anger that could be felt within the country because of the financial collapse: anger towards the banksters, the government, the recession and the situation in general.
What I took to be the resounding message of the film is that the crisis will ultimately strengthen the country, that Icelanders are entering a new healing phase of rebirth and that the nation needs to stay positive and learn a valuable lesson from the past in order to move forward.
Let’s hope so.
The five stages of grief you often hear about came to mind, the last of which is acceptance.
Apparently it’s during the last stage that people begin to come to terms with their mortality and I think it makes perfect sense that hope often goes hand in hand with acceptance.
This is not a film about the lead-up to and cause of the collapse, but rather what people are doing now and, as the aptly-named title suggests, what they are hoping for and doing to shape the future.
It does get a little repetitive at the end but complete with spectacular shots of the Icelandic landscape, Future of Hope is worth seeing.
As of September 3, Future of Hope will be released for a minimum of two weeks at the Háskólabíó cinema in Reykjavík and from September 10, it will be screened at cinemas in Akureyri and Seydisfjördur.
Alana Odegard – odegard_a@hotmail.com
Ready and willing to watch anything that comes her way, Alana has a love for all things film. Having studied it as part of her B.A. degree, Alana’s keeping her fingers crossed that one fine day her passion for the silver screen will carry over from pastime to day-job.
moreText and photos by Kremena Nikolova-Fontaine.
The phenomenon memory fascinates me. Thoughts that are deceitful, highly influenced by subjective emotions and irrational in their selectivity—and they don't age over time. Living in the past is dangerous: the worst misery ever is evaded in a cloud of sugar-coated nostalgia for supposedly lost innocence.
Helgi Thorgils Fridjónsson: "Self-portrait with birds and fish" (2009), oil on canvas.
Yet, memories possess a hidden overwhelming power: a random scent could suddenly trigger an unexpected recollection of foregone times, often long-forgotten but still alive in our subconsciousness. The peculiar fragments of snapshots, which your brain illegally preserves in its hard-drive, bridges the gap between “now” and “then” into a coherent life story.
Those random snapshots make us who we are, no matter how seemingly meaningless they seem to be. Is it crazy to remember in this present moment non-existent quotes of dialogue and events? Or idolize worthless objects for their sentimental value? Perhaps, but there is nothing more fun than reading (or viewing, in this case) other people's recollections and analysis of memories.
According to Helgi Thorgils Fridjónsson's commentary in the leaflet of the exhibition “Wistful Memory,” currently running at the National Gallery of Iceland, the word “wistfulness” is defined as “mild sorrow” and “sweet bile” in the Icelandic dictionary. More often than not, the trip down Memory Lane goes together with a sweet sorrow, or “nostalgia.”
Helgi Thorgils Fridjónsson: "Rainbow" (2009), oil on canvas.
In his paintings, Fridjónsson, a well-known contemporary Icelandic figurative painter and a founding member of the alternative gallery Nýlistsafnid, features naked men, fish and birds in typical Icelandic landscapes—a style that has often been compared to surrealist symbolism.
However, painfully meticulous and lacking in spontaneity, the figurative elements in Fridjónsson’s paintings are obviously not a result of using the surrealist's automatic technique of free flow without conscious self-editing.
The rendering is not photorealistic but deliberately naïve in order to achieve a status of universal symbolism. The style reminds me of Diego Rivera's overloaded epic murals, yet they’re devoid of any political ambitions.
Personally, I prefer Fridjónsson’s more simplified compositions, some of which are also exhibited in the current exhibition at the National Gallery. They manifest a more Taoist serenity where the domineering blank areas of the canvas interact more actively with the geometric framing.
Having been active on the Icelandic art scene since the 1980s, I wish Fridjónsson dared to slightly step away from his comfort zone by creating something more theme-specific than showcasing an established style.
For example, I found the artist's recollection of an evening in Salzburg, which he mentions in the exhibition's leaflet, a good example of unrelated events influencing each other by chance.
A frog on the street triggers the giggling of girls, both incidents united by the simultaneous act of being caught by the lens of Fridjónsson’s camera and saved as the same file in his memory, as often happens in the cosmic law of random order and free-association—especially in the realm of dreams.
The thumbnail-sized copies of these two separate photographs (the frog and the girls) in the leaflet illustrate the aforementioned example of peculiar synchronicity.
I wish those copies were included in the exhibition itself in the form of a single piece of artwork (even though Fridjónsson has never exhibited photographs so far, to the best of my knowledge.)
Helgi Hjaltalín Eyjólfsson: "Pretence, Remake, Repair, Theatricality" (2009).
The three other participating artists are the German artist Amelie von Wulffen and the Icelanders Helgi Hjaltalín Eyjólfsson and Birgir Snaebjörn Birgisson.
Birgisson has been obsessed with the blond myth of aesthetic superiority—which I find quite uninteresting and a limited motivator for creating art—but, to my surprise, his contribution to the exhibition consists of textual portraits of Parisian prostitutes from the 19th century. The artist rewrote by hand an old tourist guide—this highly entertaining information could as well be a literary work.
It reminded me of the graphic novel From Hell by the writer Alan Moore and the artist Eddie Campbell, which is more of a multi-layered depiction of Victorian society and the brute human nature than just a story about prostitutes.
Eyjólfsson is considered an installation artist, exhibiting a wood-crafted object with accompanying photographs and sketches. He creates a shrine of a theme which interests him (whether it is wall clocks, sport cars or sea beacons).
What I love about his concept is the removal of functionality from the object, reducing it to a pure aesthetic symbol as documentation of a joyful creator's experience, documenting the existence of art in everyday life—a memory of somebody's action.
Amelie von Wulffen: untitled (2008), mixed media.
Amelie von Wulffen takes a more pre-Rafaelite overly-sentimental approach of hand-altering photographs in an expressive watercolor manner, in contrast to Eyjólfsson's masculine matter-of-fact objectivity.
I particularly enjoyed her kitschy-artsy sofa for meditation over paintings, which reminded me of Jeff Koons's ceramic statue “Michael Jackson and Bubbles.”
The artist is currently participating in the exhibition “elles@centrepompidou” in Paris until February 21, 2011, presenting Centre Pompidou's collection of women artists from the 20th century to the present day.
Still enjoying the enigmatic memories of “Wistful Memory,” I recommend you also grasp the joyful moment of being present in the Now by seeing it yourself. The exhibition runs until May 2, 2010. Admission is free.
The National Gallery of Iceland (Listasafn Íslands) is located on Fríkirkjuvegur 7, 101 Reykjavík.
Kremena Nikolova-Fontaine – kremenan@gmail.com
Kremena Nikolova-Fontaine works at home for the elderly and is a passionate collector of art books, dedicating every spare moment to learn more about art while dreaming about having an exhibition of her own. She studied graphic design at the School of Visual Arts in Akureyri from 1999 to 2002. In college she realized that she didn’t want to be a designer or commercial artist but rather an illustrator and writer. At the moment she’s experimenting with her first graphic novel.
The second issue of the print edition of Iceland Review 2010 has just been published. Entitled “Under the Volcano” the magazine dedicates 20 pages, words and pictures, to the volcanic eruption in Eyjafjallajökull glacier which made headlines all over the word. New subscribers will receive the book Puffins as a gift and all subscribers are part of a draw to win a trip to Iceland. Click here to subscribe to the magazine.
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There can’t be many novels that are heralded as being “a purification for body and soul” recommended to “those who enjoy experimental cookery” (review of November Rain in DV newspaper) and “as beautiful as a painting from the golden age” (review of The Offspring by Danish newspaper Politiken). However, Reykjavík based writer, Audur Ava Ólafsdóttir, has attracted such attention not to mention literary prizes.
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Have a laugh this week by visiting Hafnarborg, the Hafnarfjördur Centre of Culture and Fine Art, where the exhibition “Humor in Icelandic Art” is currently running. The exhibition consists of works by contemporary Icelandic artists from different generations which deal with humor and irony.
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