Noi

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful
Review: (This rating is based upon the dvd Noí Albinoí, released in Iceland.)

This movie is wonderfully subtle, dark and beautiful. The opening scene is amazing. Dagur Kári has definitely done an incredible job.

I did not realize this film's international potential when I was visiting Iceland last summer and i picked this movie up, but i was amazed at how stunning the flick is. It's not so surprising that, after 101 Reykjavík, more attention is paid to iceland's limited film industry.

I will also have to say that the soundtrack is excellent! Pick that up as well if you like Iron and Wine or 'Bonnie Prince Billy'.

Rating:
Summary: Curious Icelandic film leaves an impression
Review: Nói Albinói is the story of a young man out of place in his small town life. He's a genius, but the type that everybody thinks is really an idiot. He's just under stimulated.
The film is a series of incidents and scenes, often amusing, usually quirky. For instance, I like the scene where Nói's schoolfriend brings a tape recorder and places it on Nói's desk. When the teacher asks, the friend explains that Nói couldn't make it that day. Or the part when Nói discover's his grandmother playing the violin in the wardrobe to avoid disturbing her dead husband.
This is the sort of thing you can expect. There isn't much of a story as such. But the ending is unexpected and unsettling.
Fans of Icelandic culture will be happy (although as the director explains, this is in no way meant to be a realistic portrayal of life in Iceland), and you'll see some nice snowy landscapes. But the star of the film by a big margin is Nói himself, brilliantly played with great understatement. An albino he is not, but he looks different enough for this detail not to matter.
The film is paced slow, but not boringly so. It is full of detail and undercurrents of meaning. I liked it a lot. It leaves an impression.
The DVD has plenty of extras, like interviews with a very nervous seeming director, and scenes that he cut out.



Rating:
Summary: Avalanche Saves Young Man From Eternal Boredom
Review: Noi is an introverted teenager who's very intelligent almost bordering on genius, but because most people around him can't understand him, they think he's slow. He lives reclusively with no friends, a strange grandmother who he hardly communicates with, and an alcoholic father who he finds himself parenting. Noi is bored out of his skull living in a dreary Icelandic town. He tries to amuse himself by getting drunk; chasing the only girl they show in the film, and rebelling in school. The film although moving slow had eeriness, filmed purposely with greenish hues over the icy landscapes and mountains to make the audience feel the coldness and bleakness of Noi's life and that of Iceland, which was quite effective and sent a chill into your bones. The plot was simple and dark and then comes the avalanche that unfortunately kills everyone in town except Noi and then he is set free.

Rating:
Summary: Cold dreary landscape and bleak, boring and slow story
Review: This 2003 Icelandic film is about a 17-year old boy who happens to be an Albino, and who leads a bleak life. The town is small. The landscape is cold and dreary. And everybody seems unhappy.

Noi lives with his grandmother. His alcoholic father lives nearby. School bores him and he falls asleep in class. But yet, when a school psychiatrist tries to interview him, Noi plays with a Rubik Cube and solves the puzzle in a very short time.

Noi meets a girl. of course. and they plan on running away together.

I'm not sure how the film ended though because the bleakness and the boredom of life in the little Icelandic town made me fall asleep and miss the last 20 minutes. When I woke up, I had no interest in watching the end.

This film wins the prize as being the most boring and slow that I've ever seen.

Rating:
Summary: A Unique Film Frozen into My Mind
Review: This film sticks to you like a tongue to a winter lamp post. The actors are incredibly real and the landscape startlingly brilliant. Definitely worth having in a film library.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: This is a delightful movie about an aimless teenager who is frustrated by the monotony of life in a remote part of Iceland. The slow pace of the movie along with frequent landscape shots help convey how oppressive and bleak life in this remote town is... but this is NOT a boring movie is infused with subtle humor and pathos. If you liked "Songs from the Second Floor" or "The Man Without a Past", then you will like this movie.

Rating:
Summary: A pleasant surprise
Review: This is a great film... at times a black comedy, at others, absurd, poignant and dramatic. A quote on the box cover likens the film to Donnie Darko or Rushmore (which are two strange movies to liken to each other in the first place) and that's hard to understand in any tangible sense, other than that all three center around a bizarre teenager. There are more parallels with Donnie Darko, but nothing very close.
This film is somehow escapes being depressing and falling off into psychotic melodrama (like Rosie or The Princess and the Warrior), and doesn't push any message to center stage, and avoids the pitfalls of becoming a morality piece or some sappy tale of a misfit.
It's really well done and will have you thinking on it for quite some time. The scenery is bleak, yet interesting. The soundtrack is wonderful and the acting is quite good.