Friðrik Thór Friðriksson’s THE CIRCLE will screen continuously for free at Lincoln Center’s “Images from the Edge” Icelandic series
CLASSIC & CONTEMPORARY ICELANDIC CINEMA: WHITE WHALES (SKYTTURNAR) (Friðrik Thór Friðriksson, 1987)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
Thursday April 19, 8:45; Tuesday, April 24, 4:00
Series runs April 18-26
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com
For thirty years, Friðrik Thór Friðriksson has been one of Iceland’s most prominent and important directors, making both documentaries and narrative features that delve into the unique personality of the Scandinavian nation. Founder of the Icelandic Film Corporation, Friðriksson will be represented by four works at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s “Images from the Edge: Classic & Contemporary Icelandic Cinema” series, which runs April 18-26. Throughout the festival, his highly experimental 1985 road-trip documentary, The Circle (Hringurinn), in which he strapped a camera to a car dashboard and made his way down Highway No. 1, will play continuously for free in the Frieda & Roy Furman Gallery at the Walter Reade Theater. His 1982 documentary Rock in Reykjavik, about nineteen Icelandic bands (including Tappi Tíkarrass, with a teenage singer named Björk), will be shown April 21, while his 2000 portrait of mental illness, Angels of the Universe (Englar Alheimsins), will screen April 22 and 25, with Friðriksson present for all events.
WHITE WHALES follows the travails of a pair of down-on-their-luck losers wandering through Reykjavik
The series also features Friðriksson’s first fiction film, the dazzling black comedy 1987 White Whales (Skytturnar). Reminiscent of the work of Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismäki (The Match Factory Girl, Le Havre) and Jim Jarmusch (Stranger than Paradise, Down by Law), White Whales follows the travails of a pair of pathetic if lovable losers, Grímur (Þórarinn Óskar Þórarinsson) and Bubbi (Eggert Gudmundsson). The film begins like a nature documentary, with gorgeous shots of breeching whales — suddenly interrupted by whalers who harpoon one of the beautiful mammals and bring it in to shore. On board the ship, Grímur considers their bleak future as Bubbi spends his time looking at porn. “Well, if we’re lucky, we might get a job shoveling shit,” Grímur says. “And if that doesn’t work out, we’ll have to eat shit.” Nothing seems to faze either man as they head out on an offbeat adventure that takes them hitchhiking, coming upon an injured horse, wandering around Reykjavik, stopping in at bars, visiting Grímur’s beloved grandmother, and then, ultimately, crossing over a line and ending up in some very deep trouble. Combining Icelandic music with such English-language songs as Nick Cave’s cover of Jimmy Webb’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” Merle Haggard’s “The Fugitive,” and Tom Waits’s “Tom Traubert’s Blues,” Friðriksson, who will attend both the April 19 and 24 screenings of White Whales, creates a hysterically funny existential atmosphere that erupts in surprising violence. Try not to let the poor subtitling get in the way of your enjoyment of this Icelandic gem.