I'd heard that "101 Reykjavik" was "the Icelandic 'Trainspotting.'" It is more like Almodóvar goes north—the earlier (1980s), more wildly humorous Almodóvar. An Almodóvar star, Victoria Abril (Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!) in fact has top billing (both the movies of the "European" Far North I've seen this summer have Spanish actresses setting up lives near the Arctic Circle, the other one being Lovers of the Arctic Circle). The earlier Almodóvar comedies were often wrapped around lurid soap operas, and both later Almodóvar movies and "101 Reykjavik" continue that part of the tradition.

The protagonist of "101 Reykjavik", however, is a nihilistic Icelandic slacker of roughly 29.99, Hlynur, played by Hilmir Snaer Gudnason. He lives with his divorced mother, collects unemployment, and doesn't get out of bed before noon because there is no pornography on cable tv in the morning. Although no drugs (except alcohol and nicotine) are visibly consumed, there is verbal reference by Hlynur to smoking hashish with his mother (Hanna Maria Karlsdottir). She tells him that her flamenco instructor, Lola (Abril), is going to spend the Christmas holiday in their apartment, since Lola has no family in Iceland. Hlynur does what he does best: shrug.

Although expressing the sentiment "I'd rather go to a funeral than a family party: at a funeral there's one less idiot to deal with," Hlynur accompanies his mother to another family Christmas dinner. He fantasizes gunning down the family, just before they get out the video of the previous year's Christmas dinner.

I'm not sure where Lola is on Christmas day, but after that she and Hlynur are left in the apartment together. He takes her to the very crowded and quite loud pub at which he is a regular, and the hot-blooded Latina ignites the lethargic, cold-blooded Icelander. Then things get really complicated (I did mention "soap opera," didn't I?) with multiple pregnancies, twisted genealogies, and a glacier top. It would spoil much of the fun to explicate the plot beyond the sexual rampage of Lola and Hlynur, but it is very Almodovaresque... as is Hlynur's indifference to a very nice and pretty blonde girlfriend, Hofi (Thrudur Vilhjalmsdottir)

There is nudity, some graphic sex played for laughs, a lot of bad attitude from the young Icelander slackers (it is the immigrants to Iceland who have the old-fashioned Icelander work ethic...), a few glimpses of the countryside and the cityscape. I am puzzled that there is so much light in the scenes of the Christmas-to-New Year sequence and dark in what is supposed to be summer (knowing from recent observation that it never gets dark in summer and having been told that in January there is only an hour of daylight per day). Going outdoors at night on New Year's Eve clad only in a tank-top (and with breath not being visible) defies verisimilitude for me. The winter does not look nearly cold enough...

Although the Almodóvar resonance is blatant in the casting of Abril, Hlynur is as much a throwback to David Warner's "Morgan" and Tom Courtenay's "Billy Liar" (heavy-fantasizing young Brits from the mid-1960s) and Malcolm MacDowell in "If..." as to Antonio Banderas in "Matador." "Law of Desire," "Labyrinth of Passion," or "Tie me Up" (from 1980s Madrid). I guess some of the nihilist humor of "Trainspotting" is also echoed and both movies derive from breakthrough nihilistic novels from two not-very-populous societies (Scotland and Iceland)—neither of which I have read. Novelist Helmer Kormakur adapted his book.

There are many crane shots and some helicopter shots, though most of the movie takes place in the cramped apartment and cramped pub. The score seems mostly variations on the Kinks' "Lola." About three-quarters of the dialogue is in subtitled Icelandic, but Lola and her interlocutors speak English (except for a few stray Spanish curses Lola spits out).

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There are no real DVD extras (I don't consider scene selection an "extra") except abridged filmographies of the two leads. There are trailers for four obscure films, one that I loathe (Irma Vep) and one I vaguely remember liking (Stolen Kisses), though the video quality of the last discourages looking for that DVD.


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age