Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

Protraph Lack of good storyline.

Donald Seymour This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Kayden This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Thomas Scott The film 101 Reykjavik produced and directed by award-winning Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur is a dark cerebral comedy that proves to be a strong first feature length film for Kormákur. Based on the book by painter, novelist, translator, and writer Hallgrímur Helgason, 101 Reykjavik is titled after a section of the downtown of Iceland's largest city and capital which is populated by people whom the protagonist would no doubt describe as idiots. From that setting sprouts a facetious and twisted tale of transfiguration, lust, and profundity, that contorts notions of familial relations and seeks to both entertain viewers and incite thought.The films self-centred and listless protagonist Hlynur, a roughly 30 year old unemployed loser with a penchant for porn, proves to be both a comedian and a philosopher. Dedicated to his self-proclaimed profession of being unemployable and unwanted wreck, the nihilistic Hlynur revels in his insignificance; wishing nothing on himself except porn, booze, and a swift death. Hlynur shirks all responsibility and leaves his mother's tiny apartment almost exclusively to get drunk with his two acquaintances or harass civil servants. When pushed to describe what it is that he does, Hlynur responds by saying he does "the nothing kind of nothing." A perfect descriptor for his life thus far.That all begins to change when he is introduced to the vivacious-flamenco instructor-girlfriend of his mother: Lola. Lola plays the parent and tries to coax a person out of the reclusive Hlynur but he has other ideas in mind. Despite Hófi throwing herself at Hlynur, he rejects her entirely while spending time with Lola during his mother's vacation. His efforts culminate in an alcohol fuelled night of drunken passion the final night before his mothers return. What follows for Hlynur is a whirlwind of confessions, self-pity, and unprecedented growth that is riddled with comically dark humour and philosophical commentary.The apartment feels much smaller to Hlynur as he is slapped in the face by the reality of his situation. The thin walls of the apartment bring his frustration with himself to a boil and in a fit of childish rage he repeatedly seeks to find solace in alcohol only to be berated by the idiots in the bar. However, as Hlynur grows as a person he also begins to come to terms with his mother's love for Lola. With changing times and rising tensions in his home-life Hlynur is roused from his hibernation-esque lifestyle and pushed to not only make something of himself but also of his now-topsy-turvy family. How he comes to terms with his "mamma's-boy" role changing in the congealing familial unit is a core point of growth and a central theme in the film.Seekers of intellectual stimulation fear not, the philosopher inside Hlynur is awash with notes of existential and moral nihilism. With comments like "Family dinner or a funeral... I'd rather go to a funeral, at least there's one less idiot" and "The worst thing about AIDS as a method of suicide is that it takes so long to die from it" Hlynur cements himself as someone who places no value in both his life and the lives of even his closest family. His philosophical outlook undergoes a parallel morphology to that of his tumultuous private and social lives.The pace of the camera work contributes a deceptively monotonous plodding feeling to the film which occurs over what appears to be several weeks if not months. The abstraction of perception of time contributes to the film by implying that by and large nothing important happens in the everyday lives of the characters and that they live a relatively empty existence. Furthermore, for a large portion of the film the setting of Christmastime in Reykjavik lends a chill and vacant appearance that serves as an ample metaphor for the utter lack of activity in Hlydnurs life. In the words of Hlydnur "There are no insects, no trees, no nothing... The only reason why people live here is because they were born here." Which makes ever more apparent the state of his existence.Despite its meandering pace and, at points, glaringly obvious metaphors 101 Reykjavik has a twisted and unpredictable plot that surprises with each turn. The comedy, like great chocolate, is dark and you most certainly have to be in the mood for it. As comic Erma Bombeck said "There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humour and hurt" and 101 Reykjavik walks that line with dexterity. That said, it is nigh-impossible to watch and not chuckle in the least. Needless to say 101 Reykjavik is an excellent first showing for Kormákur.

NordicFilm In the pop song "Lola", the band The Kinks sing about a romantic encounter between a young man and a possible transvestite. The innocent enough sounding song, but is in many ways the perfect theme song for 101 Reykavik by Baltasar Kormakur. This movie follows Hlynur, a 29- year-old man who still lives with his mom whose days blend by in a succession of drug filled weekends and days spent at the computer, but are quickly turned upside down with the arrival of his mom's new girlfriend--Lola. Once the love triangle develops between Lola, his mom, and Hylnur, the boy-man finds his life changing drastically. Reykavik, both the title of the movie, the setting for the story, and the hometown for the director, is a small Icelandic town under the oppression of winter. Hylnur, played by Hilmir Snær Guðnason, though on the edge of turning 30 is perpetually living as if he was 17, and feels as if he is oppressed as much by the town as his own lack of ambition. His mother's house, a small cupboard of an apartment where a bath doubles as a couch, is the entirety of his world. His universe only expands to the local pub during the weekends, where he drinks with the same group of people. There is no better description of his character then to say he is sleeping through his life.The movie is almost repetitious to a fault, but perhaps that is the point; by midway through the movie, the viewer feels like they themselves are bored to tears by the cyclical nature of the scenes. Hylnur spends his days at the house and pub; desperate women search for love only to be insulted by Hylnur and his friends, and Reykavik remains buried in the snow and dark. However, the movie is very self-aware of this: best categorized in the scene where at a holiday dinner, where the family actually sits and watches a video of the previous year's dinner party with the same people parroting identical phrases. While low budget, Guðnason makes excellent use of lighting and setting to reflect and parallel the story and tone of the movie. At the start, Reykavik is cold, dark, and snowy; the weather reflects the mood and feelings of the characters. As the movie moves along, the snow melts, the days grow longer, there is more lighting in the shots, new life is breathed into the characters. Mirroring the thaw of routine, and the creation of new life as prominent characters become pregnant. Upon viewing of this movie, it can become easy to be disgusted and distracted by the gratuitous scenes of sex and drugs--often included for comedic value-- and miss the central points the film tries to convey. While these scenes do detract from the overall message, 101 Reykavik hits uncomfortable nerves. Can a person have a second rebirth? While no one who watches this film could ever possess the lack of ambition of Hylnur, there is a common feeling that one falls into ruts that cannot be broken. We feel like we are just passive recipients of life, just participants in events beyond our control. In this sense the movie is redeeming--much like Hylnur experiences--what takes us out of ruts and makes us feel like we are once again "living life' is what pushes us out of our comfort zone and into uncharted territory. In many ways, the fundamental judges of a movie such as 101 Reykavik is whether or not the viewer enjoys viewing it or it stimulates thought. On these grounds, the movie succeeds with flying colors. The comedic aspects most often do fall short, but the movie stands on other grounds. It makes one examine their own life, whether or not they themselves are sleeping through life, or an active participant; do they truly know what they want out of life or is it simply a less extreme version of Hylnur's life plans to perpetually live off welfare?

Rachel Camacho Hlyner, played by Hilmir Snær Guðnason, is an almost 30 year old man who is unemployed and still living with his mother Berglind played by Hanna María Karlsdóttir, in Iceland. He spends most of his time watching and downloading porn, searching for a job (though not very hard) and at a bar in downtown Reykjavik. His father is an alcoholic and his mother is, as he discovers over the course of the film, a lesbian. In the beginning of the film Hlyner's world is very small, which is probably a metaphor for life in Iceland and the isolation of its inhabitants. Hlyner's existences gets turned upside down with the arrival of his mother's Spanish friend Lola played by the wonderful Victoria Abril. Hlyner and Lola have sex after a drunken night and he later finds out that Lola and his mother are not just friends, they are in fact in love. This fiasco leads to a lot of emotional turmoil for Hlyner which manifests itself in multiple ways including somewhat incestuous dreams involving his mother, which makes sense considering that there is only one degree of separation, that is, Lola, between him having sex with his mom, which must be deeply disturbing. To make matters worse is that during this time his kind-of girlfriends Hofi says that she is pregnant which he agonizes over for months until she gets an abortion and tells him it wasn't his kid anyway. Lola also gets pregnant and this time it is for sure his child. Hlyner does get jealous of his mother and Lola's relationship but he wars with that feeling because he wants to be accepting of his mother coming out of the closet and support her finding someone with whom she can be happy. This movie deals with a lot of serious, deep issues but it also manages to keep a more lighthearted feeling overall. There are some really funny scenes, especially the one where he goes to the suburbs to have dinner with the extended family and he imagines shooting them all with a shotgun as they sit down to watch a video of the last years family dinner. I think this scene speaks to the tedium felt by many Icelandic youths, who maybe have a hard time finding things to do with themselves, to keep entertained. Though it might be a darker, graphic scene it's not something we take too seriously because I think at some point most people have fantasized about offing family members. I know I have. So when the scene switches back to the alive relatives asking what he's thinking his response about liking the couch is just hysterical in contrast to the previous scene and his outburst. I also really enjoyed the music of the film and the way the song "Lola" by Ray Davies played in the background. It's actually one of my favorite songs, and I think that it had to be a part of the movie as it added an extra layer of depth just through the song. The song itself is about a young man who meets a transvestite in a club in Soho, London. I think it ties really well into the film because the man in "Lola" is kind of confused and uncertain in his relationship with Lola, just as Hlyner is with his Lola in 101 Reykjavik. There's also a lot of great character development in this film. Hlyner really grows up over the course of the film. I think he's definitely more mature and happy than he ever was in the beginning of the movie. It has a really great life lesson in that. Though things seem really bad for Hlyner for a while when he takes a step back he realizes that everything really is going to be okay, and that life actually is not all that bad. The birth of Lola's child really catapulted this realization onto Hlyner and the baby represents Hlyners own awakening to the outside world. This is a character who has a lot to come to terms with; his mother being a lesbian, having an affair with his mother's lover, his incestuous dreams resulting from said affair, the pregnancy and abortion of his other lover, the pregnancy of Lola and the birth of her child. But at the end of the day Hlyner realizes that everything isn't as bad as it all seems and in fact, his life is going to be okay and he might actually be happy.

tothemax311 '101 Reykjavik', directed by Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur in 2000, and based off the novel by the same name by Hallgrímur Helgason offers a melodramatic look into the changing cultural landscape of Iceland as they enter the modern world through urbanization. 101 Reykjavik also depicts an oddly comedic coming-to-age story that turns the main character's mundane lifestyle upside down into a quirky wake-up call to enter the real world.'101 Reykjavik' is the story of an almost 30 year-old man by the name of Hlynur. Hlynur has no job, and doesn't really care to find one, while he enjoys downloading porn in the daytime and going out to the bar in Reykjavik and getting smashed- usually hooking up with a girl almost every night. On top of all this, he lives with his mother. However, one day, along comes his mother's friend Lola, a Spanish flamenco instructor. Quickly, Lola adds a bit of foreign color and excitement to the movies landscape and to Hlynur's dull lifestyle. Lola, we find out, is a lesbian who is in love with Hlynur's mother, Berglind, who also shares this love in return. One night, while Berglind is away visiting her relatives, Hlynur takes Lola out for a night on the town and, unsurprisingly, gets smashed and has sex with Lola. Hlynur becomes torn by this hookup for he is jealous of his mothers and Lola's relationship. Yet, out of respectful for his mother, he wants to accept her lesbian relationship with Lola. The film comes to a climax when we find out that not only may the girl that he has been hooking up with may be pregnant, but also that he has impregnated Lola. Hlynur is pushed to the edge. We learn that the girl isn't pregnant with his child, but that doesn't calm Hlynur who knows that the child Lola is carrying is still his. The movie begins to come to a close with Hlynur beginning to realize that he needs to change his lifestyle and possibly enter the "real-world" that he had dreaded to be'come apart of.As my first Icelandic film '101 Reykjavik' was surprisingly pleasing and oddly comedic. By the end of the movie I was both engaged with analyzing the character of Hlynur while noticing symbolism to common universal themes such as coming-to-age, but also noticing themes that have becoming common for Icelandic film.The coming-to-age theme is overwhelming present throughout the film. As a man who still lives and relies on his mother, and on the government for that matter on unemployment checks, he sees no reason to work in life since he can easily live a happy life with what he gets and has to look out for no one. With the progressing pregnancy of Lola Hlynur begins to realize the child is on the way and he, out of respect for his mother, but also realizing that he has to live with his mother and Lola, begins to realize he will have to care for his son/brother. With the arrival of the child Hlynur realizes his new life as a caregiver and comes out of his stubborn way of life. With an arguably religious scene where he is lying on a mountain covered in snow that starts to wash off with rain, Hlynur is cleansed of his past life- both his lazy lifestyle, and of his jealously over his mother and Lola. This scene is appropriately juxtaposed with the baptism of the child and both scenes are a complete turn away from the dark and gloomy tone of the whole film, offering for the first time a look at the true beauty of the natural landscape of Iceland.Seeing this juxtaposition with the rural landscape of Iceland for the first time presents us with the typically Icelandic theme of the rural vs. urban landscape that is representative of Iceland moving from a small and relatively unknown country into the modern-day landscape. The sense of disconnect felt by Hlynur between real-life and that of the entertaining, and of the depicted almost surreal lifestyle of the city, at least for me, could be representative of the whole nations struggle for finding its place in the new world, if not, at least a balance between the two. Hlynur's age of 30 also reminds me of Generation X- a transition generation between the old and the new- this could also be another symbolic element of the film as it shows that the young adults in Iceland are also at a disconnect with feelings of connecting their childhood lives from the 'rural' Iceland, with that of their adulthood lives in the 'urban' Iceland.If I were to offer any criticism of the film it would be that I felt the film stopped short of really offering an in-depth look at the characters in the film. While the characters were presented well I felt that it would have been interesting to go further in analyzing the nightlife lived out by Hlynur to further explore the generational disconnect. However, the awkward pause that is presented by looking at the in-depth nature of this could also be a cleaver way of expressing the awkward nature of Icelandic people themselves, and of their shy, reserved, and awkward lifestyle that is holding back any true expression.Overall, I loved the film, and would recommend it to anyone with in interest in looking at the lifestyles and personality of the Nordic people. This, coupled with an enjoyment of an old sense of disconnected humor, paints a beautiful melodramatic look into the changing cultural landscape of Iceland, while offering a fun and quirky coming-to-age story.