Product Description

Studio: Genius Products Inc Release Date: 06/19/2007 Run time: 90 minutes Rating: Nr

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #48077 in DVD
• Brand: Genius
• Released on: 2003-04-15
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 90 minutes

Amazon.com
Sexy Spaniard Victoria Abril heats up the wintry city of Reykjavík in 101 Reykjavík. Icelandic slacker Hlynur (Hilmir Snær Guðnason) lives on welfare with his mother, leading a depressed and aimless existence. His mother invites her flamenco teacher, Lola (Abril), to live with them; while his mother is away for New Year's Eve, Hlynur and Lola have a drunken fling. But upon her return, Hlynur's mother tells him that she and Lola are lesbian lovers--and it soon comes out that she and Lola are going to have a baby together. 101 Reykjavík seems to be the contemporary Icelandic version of American movies of the 1970s like Five Easy Pieces, in which antiheroic characters struggle to make sense of a world that doesn't seem to have any place for them. The movie is a bit unfocused, but its urban malaise feels genuine, if not particularly new. Abril is delightful, as always. --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews

Iceland? Who would guess...?
I mean, a movie set in Reykjavik, Iceland???
Well, it's terrific, and filled with some of the most hilarious, memorable lines ever to come from the screen. My personal favorite was: But I've never cheated on my mother before!
101 Reykjavik focuses on the life of a chronic welfare recipient who lives his depressed life with his mother in a small apartment where the bathtub is 3 feet from the kitchen table. Enter: another woman, but both mother and son want her. Sit back, laugh, and enjoy this film of urban angst and aimlessness.

A wryly uplifting glimpse into nihilism
"101 Reykjavik" is easily one of the best movies I have seen in quite a while. Based on a novel, the film deftly weaves formulaic comedic conventions with smart existential exploration. Typically Scandinavian humor and serious philosophical ideas (look a bit beyond the overtly "pop" nihilism and you'll find the tenderly absurd story rather enlightening) really make this film a fun way to think about life.

Icelandic Slacker Movie
2000 Icelandic not-rated movie. Also known as "101 ehf. kynnir" Caution: full nudity (including male, and female (and brief nudity of and older woman)), and drug use. Something of a strange love-triangle movie.

DVD Features: Contains the film (oddly, the DVD does not specific what language the film is in, though it offers English subtitles), and special features. There are three special features: 1: filmographies; 2: "Trailers from the Wellspring Libraries" (7 trailers, "Irma Vep," "Un Air De Famille," "Clockwatchers," "A Couch in New York," "Hugo Pool," "Stolen Kisses," and "Venus Beauty Institute"; and 3: "Weblinks" (2 links: 1: a website that contains an interview with the movie's director, and 2: the Wellspring website address).

Credits: The movie stars Hilmir Snær Guðnason (Hlynur Bjorn Hafsteinsson; "The Sea"), Victoria Abril (Lola Milagros, from Spain; "Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!" (1990), "Robin and Marian" (1976), Hanna María Karlsdóttir (Berglind; "Agnes"), Þrúður Vilhjálmsdóttir (Hófí; "No Trace"), Baltasar Kormákur (Þröstur; "Stormy Weather"), and Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (Marri; "Fiasco"). The writer and director is Baltasar Kormakur ("A Little Trip to Heaven") based on the novel by Hallgrimur Helgason.

Plot: Hlynur Bjorn Hafsteinsson is a adult slacker that still lives at home and is very disinterested with moving on with his life. Despite this dispirited drifting through life, he is able to have something of a relationship with a woman named Hofi, but even here he is a slacker and doesn't really care about the relationship. Things change when his mother's friend drops by (Lola; a lesbian, actually she is bi).

Review: The movie opens with a close up of the main actor's face while he is having some fun with a blonde (Hofi). Based on an early monologue, the main guy seems to be fatalistic ("dead before I was born . . . life is an interruption"; a lot of talk of death in the movie; NOTE: it is slightly harder to tell when an actor is talking in his head when you only read subtitles). The includes beautiful shots of Icelandic landscape. Odd, once the Spanish woman arrives, they begin speaking English with her (I don't mean that the rest of the movie is in English; Abril has been around since the `70s, and still looks great (even at around 41), even wandering around her friends apartment nude).

An interesting look at Iceland, if this movie had occurred anywhere except Iceland, it might have been a little boring, but the exotic nature of the locale kept it interesting though a rather slow movie. Interesting music, good for the bleak snowbound world of Reykjavik. Good acting, something of a slice of life plot, some attractive women (not all; though some are quite beautiful), some of the men are jerks (probably just the characters in the movie; apparently, the drunk father and welfare society are the main character's excuses for being a slacker). There are some humorous moments in the film. Overall, I would give the movie 3.85 stars, mostly due to the exotic nature of the locale.