Iceland may be a cold place, but it’s got a warm heart, if Ragnar Bragason’s latest film, Bjarnfredarson, is anything to go by. The film, at the Montreal World Film Festival, is based on a popular Icelandic television series about three misfits whose only commonality is a criminal past.
Leading a double life, Daniel is married with two small boys. His family thinks he’s going to med school when in fact he’s studying art, and graduation is looming on the horizon. Petty criminal, Olaf lives with them, and though he’s no relation, the kids call him “Uncle.” With his white, platform sneakers and a retro haircut that looks like a pitch black bear rug out of the Eighties, Olaf screams 40-year-old Peter Pan.
Into this bucolic dysfunction comes Georg, recently released from prison. His mother, an icon of the country’s feminist movement, is shocked that her son is out so soon from prison. He was supposed to serve ten years for murder but served only half of that due to his exemplary behaviour. So, Georg ends up on Daniel’s doorstep, the man he tried to frame for the murder he committed. Surprisingly, and over the objections of his wife who is secretly in love with her driving instructor, Daniel takes him in. It’s the beginning of a wacky romp through the lives of petty criminals doing their best to find happiness in a world full of fanaticism and repression.
Repression is the backdrop for another film, the romantic comedy, Beloved Berlin Wall directed by Peter Timm. Set in 1989, shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Franzi is a young woman who has just moved to Berlin for her studies. The only place she can afford is a place right near the Wall. Her window overlooks the East German border tower where Sascha and his comrades vigilantly look for escapees – that is when they’re not writing up comical entries for their superior like the one about the most recent runaway, a cat.
Low on money as most students are, Franzi takes the advice of her neighbour and crosses the border into East Germany where food is half-price. On the way back, her arms are loaded down with groceries. She just makes it back into the West when she drops everything. The eggs break, the milk spills, and Sascha crosses the few steps into the West, coming to the rescue with a broom and a pail. He walks slowly but steadily towards Franzi, his eyes full of the smile on his lips, heroically oblivious to his Communist co-workers, their rifles pointed at his back, screaming for him to stop. Franzi is terrified, rooted to the spot, as she watches Sascha clean up the mess and then gallantly hand her the one loaf of bread that escaped ruination. Then he returns to his post. So begins a romance of Shakespearean proportions, complete with Stasi fools, counter-espionage intrigue, and identity swaps.
These are not-to-be-missed films, not just because they’re funny and warm-hearted, but because they show that humour may be the best weapon against conformity.
Freelance writer Elizabeth Johnston teaches at Concordia University.
Focus on World Cinema
LIEBE MAUER, 2009 / Colour / 107 min, Dir. Peter Timm, Germany.
Schedule :
September 02, 2010 • 17:00 • CINÉMA QUARTIER LATIN 9 • L9.02.4
BJARNFREDARSON, 2010 / Colour / 109 min, Dir. Ragnar Bragason, Iceland.
Schedule :
September 05, 2010 • 10:30 • CINÉMA QUARTIER LATIN 11 • L11.05.1
September 05, 2010 • 21:40 • CINÉMA QUARTIER LATIN 10 • L10.05.6
