Touches You

The Age of Commercialism

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Greetings again from the darkness. No "Happy Days" here. The best compliment I can pay this movie is that I stayed interested despite the pathetic individuals and families portrayed. Very little human redeeming value in any of the characters with the possible exception of the french girlfriend and the daughters husband, Mortin, played by Sven Nordin (who was excellent in last year's "Elling"). Sad, desperate, isolated. These describe not only the characters, but Iceland as portrayed in the movie. What kind of airport is that? There is sufficient biting humor among the family that one initially believes that there might be some deeply buried love, but as the movie progresses we begin to understand why this is really not a family - just a bunch of loose cannons connected by fate. Wonderful camera work and sharp dialog make this one worth seeing, just be prepared for an emotional challenge.

It's great to go into a film knowing nothing about it before hand. This was the case when I saw "The Sea." While you can easily see it was adapted from a play the themes are consistent and handled cinematically for the most part.The first thing that is apparent is that the casting in this film is ridiculously perfect. No actor feels out of place. Speaking of which neither are any of the scenes. It is rare to watch such a multi-character film and never be left confused about who's who. All the characters are sharply defined and they all illustrate the struggle amongst family, between the generations and the joining or avoidance of a globalized world.The scenes in the pool and the scenes with the black sheep are accessible symbolism that serve comedic or story functions such that the audience is never lost. Another amazing thing is that even though all the characters have undesirable traits they're all funny and identifiable. The only place the film falters in anyway is that the father has a speech that's a little too long at the end. With the way the film cuts the framing of the story is very surprising.The acting all around is great but those who stand out are Gunnar Eyjólfsson, Hilmir Snær Guðnason, Hélène de Fougerolles, Guðrún Gísladóttir and Elva Ósk Ólafsdóttir.Whenever watching a foreign film, especially one from a culture I'm not that familiar with, I always look for two things: 1. does it seem indigenous and not overly influenced by Hollywood? 2. While being indigenous does it communicate a universal message and/or theme. "The Sea" succeeds in both cases.

So this is the third Icelandic film I see in a very short time and it's the worst. The director made a pretty good job with 101 Reykjavik, although I was not that impressed by it, it's still miles ahead of this film in every respect. Quite frankly I had a strong feeling that the people involved in this film were trying to make the ultimate European art house formula, which in my opinion is at times even worse than the most formulatic Hollywood films. Well the formula fails dramatically here. This film has it all, outdoor sex scenes in snow covered lagoons, pretensious dialogue, the hardship of life in the north. It tries to hard to include everything a film festival would want from a foreign film and it ends up being a second class version of the Danish film The Celebration. There is nothing original in anything, it's flat and boring at times and the acting and direction at the best of times border on the very pretensious. I really think scandinavian cinema needs to find a new direction if this is what they want to offer us.

This movie is one of the most original films from the arctic north in 2002. Baltasar Kormakur is a directing genious! Its actors are just so amazing and excellent. I just hope this movie goes all the way to be Oscar nominee as the best foreign film of the year.I gave it 9 out of 10. Should have been 10, but I have not given any movie 10, ... yet. I do believe this is the best film ever made in Iceland. And, being from Iceland, I am proud of this new masterpiece.