(Directed by Dagur Kari)
by Kevin Murphy
Considered next to the pallid images of Iceland’s winter landscapes, Noi is a remarkably colorful film.
Halfway through, the film’s namesake and hero, Noi, played by Tomas Lemarquis, is slouched in a chair.
Iceland’s white hills and gray skies lurk outside the window, but Noi’s bright flannel shirt, his shining bald head, the lamp’s yellow, sunny glow, and all those lush palm trees that spread across the leafy green wallpaper burst like a vibrant postcard sent from Paradise.
The scene registers Noi’s alienation, his desire for flight, and the deadpan, whimsical humor of this 2003 film.
That humor is found in the small places that hit hard. In the same scene, Noi is in his grandmother’s den, the television turned to a Kung Fu movie. The martial artists’ flying grunts and smashing violence bound through the room. Noi’s absorption is still, silent and complete, and highlights his inarticulate struggle against his surroundings and community.
His struggle extends to his father, Kiddi.
Kiddi’s roughhewn wisdom and potluck philosophies provide some of the film’s funnier moments. Kiddi adores Elvis, tries to sing and play piano, but he flies into a pathetic rage when he condemns the piano’s inability to make music. He is a largely absent father, prone to the vodka bottle, and tries to shine his rusty role with inappropriate advice that he doles out to his son. The Elvis obsession is silly, but the film’s humor reaches its dark goals as Kiddi continues on with his sad, lonely life.
It’s hard to blame Kiddi for his ways. After all, his is a sad, lonely life, settled in Northern Iceland on the banks a frozen fjord. While the subject and drama of Noi is universal, this is a primarily Icelandic film. The landscapes are stern, stolid characters. Unspeaking, intemperate, mighty, they dictate life in this small town. And while I don’t particularly know what constitutes an Icelandic film, Noi falls into that category simply for its focus on the country’s harsh environment.
The universal aspects of the film are brought to reason by Noi’s classic adolescent struggles. He is a teenager bored by his surroundings and misunderstood by his elders. He lacks direction and has no plans, yet is wickedly bright and personable. The film combines the ancient ingredients of love, struggle, mentorship, and flight to achieve status as a coming of age story.
Noi surpasses most negative connotations by placing its hero in a dramatic, foreign setting. It underscores Noi’s uniqueness by making him an Albino, and ultimately triumphs because of a blackout ending that allows the audience to interpret what has finally happened.
Writer and director Dagur Kari offers a deft, penetrating glimpse into this arctic purgatory with a funny, tragic film; a film that brings a little warmth to the people who live in the coldest places.
