An Interview With Ken Loach

Along with fish sticks and Bjork, the films of Baltasar Kormákur must be considered among Iceland's leading cultural and commercial exports. For a country whose population hovers around 300,000, and spends several months each year in a sun-less deep freeze, that's not nearly as unimpressive as it sounds.

If the island's Gross National Product shows a positive blip for May 2003, it's because Kormakur's scabrous comedy 101 Reykjavik finally was released on DVD, while his new feature, The Sea, opened in limited release in New York and Los Angeles. Neither event is likely to reduce the nation's dependence on geo-thermal energy and whatever it is being off-loaded from trawlers this spring, but the additional kronurs can't hurt.

The 37-year-old filmmaker graduated from the Drama Academy of Iceland, and spent most of his early career working in the theater as an actor and director. Like other Icelandic actors and filmmakers, Fridrik Thór Fridriksson was a leading influence.

In 101 Reykjavik, a 30-year-old slacker lives with his mother and spends his days drinking, watching porn and surfing the net. Hlynur becomes unhinged when his mother and Spanish flamenco teacher (the splendid Victoria Abril) -- with whom he has also had sex -- announce that they're getting married and are expecting a child that almost certainly is his. How Hlynur comes to grips with this dilemma is both hilarious and ultimately poignant.

In The Sea, the patriarch of an extremely dysfunctional family calls his far-flung sons and daughters back to their tiny hometown on the coast to announce that he wants hand down the reins to the family fishing business and write his life story. His decision stirs up many deep-seated sibling rivalries and opens a Pandora's box of family secrets.

Kormákur was in Los Angeles last month to promote The Sea.

MOVIE CITY NEWS: Much of 101 Reykjavik was set during the Christmas and New Year's Eve holidays, when much of the world is in a party mood. But, I'm guessing that the heavy drinking in Iceland doesn't stop on January 2.

BALTASAR KORMAKUR: Oh, no, it goes on all year long.

MCN: I spent one extremely long night in Reykjavik, in 1973, when the cheapest ticket to Europe was available through Loftleider Icelandic airlines and it provided for an overnight layover in the capital. I don't think that takes place much anymore.

BK: No, there are more direct flights now, so very few people stay over, especially in winter.

MCN: You actually live at 101 Reykjavik, which is in the center of town. Besides drinking, what else is there to do in the city?

BK: There's a lot going on in Reykjavik, especially in the last 10 years. For such a small town, there's lots of music, theater, cafes, painting.

MCN: The non-Nordic women in your films - Abril and Helene de Fougerolles, in The Sea - stick out like a sore thumb in Iceland.

BK: Yes, they really stand out. I'm half Spanish. My father is Catalon, from Barcelona.

Over time, though, Iceland has become more international.

MCN: Abril's character is an exotic oddity, a flamenco teacher in Reykjavic. De Fougerolles' character, married to the son expected to take over the family business, is a real fish out of water in their tiny coastal town.

BK: In 101, Lola was an outsider coming to the island, where nothing is the same for her but she wants to stay. The Sea is more about the son, who's returning home from the center of Europe. Along with Francoise, he has no intention of moving back to Iceland, no matter how much his father wants him there to run the business.

MCN: Neither theme is specific to Iceland, particularly.

BK: Yes, that's probably why they've traveled more than other Icelandic films. They resonate more with audiences everywhere.

The Sea, after all, is really just about a dysfunctional family. It has a unique setting, with the fishing industry, but Iceland has no monopoly on dysfunctional families.

MCN: In early reviews, The Sea has been compared to King Lear, The Little Foxes and The Celebration.

BK: It wasn't intentional. I've also heard it compared to Chekov's "The Cherry Orchard."

MCN: So, those comparisons don't bother you?

BK: I come from the theater. I started as an actor, and then I became a stage director. So, I owe Chekov a lot. I think he's brilliant.

He was able to tell his stories with practically no plot at all, and his plays spoke to the whole world. Maybe, subconsciously, I modeled The Sea after Chekov or Shakespeare, but I wasn't doing it on purpose.

MCN: I didn't sense that The Sea was supposed to be a political movie. But it spoke to issues like over-fishing, foreign ownership of Icelandic companies, and the transition from a rural to urban economy.

BK: This became a highly political movie in Iceland. I even went on television with the minister of fisheries.

I didn't intend it to be a political movie, but I did want to say something about how people deal with the consequences of political decisions. It was a very popular movie in Iceland.

MCN: Certainly, it's a beautiful and physically diverse island. The vistas are breathtaking.

BK: It's a very interesting country. It's remote, but, at he same time, it has everything you need.

I have sort of a love-hate relationship with the country.

MCN: How can anyone hate Iceland?

BK: The winters are too long, and there's only one airline, so it's difficult to escape when you feel frustrated or claustrophobic. The audience for our films isn't very large, so it's difficult to support an industry.

But, Iceland is beautiful. Sometimes it's hard to imagine living anywhere else.

MCN: The periods of endless nights and midnight sun must have a strange effect on people.

BK: It does affect your moods, a lot. It can be very depressing not to see the sun for months. Even when you can, it's like twilight. People drink a lot because of that.

The weather changes a lot, as well. We develop very close relationships with the country ... that are different from those of people in big cities elsewhere. We're also dependent on the sea for our economy.

MCN: It must really screw up shooting schedules.

BK: I shot the whole movie in October and November, which is a very difficult period. We didn't have much time to shoot what we needed outdoors.

I sort of like that gloomy twilight look, though. I'm not very fond of harsh sunlight.

MCN: You're meeting with the power players here. Any temptation to "go Hollywood"?

BK: I'm being pitched all kinds of things. I don't see Hollywood as the big enemy, because this is where the money is, and not all of the companies are doing studio movies.

I'm not tempted to sell out. If I'm going to become well known, I want it to be for something I'm proud of.

MCN: So, we're not going to see your name attached to "Die Hard VIII"?

BK: I'm not the best man to do those kinds of movies. I'm not a digital expert, or an expert in special effects. I'm interested in making movies about people.

It doesn't matter where my movies are set. Right now, I have a script that's set in Canada and is in English.

Just because I was born on the island doesn't mean I want to spend the rest of my life telling stories for 300,000 people. It helps that I'm half-Spanish, because the market I can reach is much bigger.

MCN: The film has been compared to The Celebration. Do you feel any regional kinship, at least, to the Dogme 95 movement?

BK: I'm not a big fan of the Dogme, or making movies that look worse than their budgets would allow. People in places like Iceland have been making movies in this way for years because they don't have enough money.

I wanted to use the handheld camera and give my actors the freedom to move, and not be stuck in one beam of light.