Jar City (2006)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

it is the rare 'crazy' movie that actually has something to say.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Is this a homicide detective or a bespectacled primary school teacher i see before me in that thick wool knit jumper? With his frumpy dumpy side kick. Who looks like she might have knitted the jumper for him. Turns out he – Erlendur – (Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson) is no pussy though. Hard as a bag of hammers with his glasses off.What more can you want? Murder "thriller" set in chilly Iceland. Usually I don't do crime capers. But gets a vigorous nod of interest simply for being set in Sigur Rosland. Merely point the camera at all that moody isolation and bleak melancholy – and you've got wild and windy (and woolly) scenarios immediately on tap. Elemental my dear Watson.A choiry backing track gets a bit annoying piping off a portentous kind of churchy religiosity.Understanding information-ladened subplots while reading subtitles is tricky/tiring/tiresome.In the end this is standard issue telly crime, the kind of police procedural that rolls out the ITV pop-slot ad-nausem at 9 o'clock (although this was shown on BBC 4, the go-to channel for miserable subtitled Scandinavian crime drama) Mind you, Inspector Frost wouldn't tuck into a plate of singed sheep's head for his supper (while reading a bit of Bible) But this is Iceland after all – the land of ice and idiosyncrasy.

This is Iceland at its' grimmest - dark, brooding, edge of civilisation in terms of buildings and culture. But an interesting, if rather predictable in its' villain and outcome, film that is set in a different world (cue Pacino in 'Insomnia') with a crazy seeming language and an acceptance of behaviour that 'jars!' A bit of a villain is murdered, and a young man loses his young daughter to illness (no US or UK film would show a nude seven year old on the slab!), so the tired, bit shambolic, but hard, detective (with a druggie daughter) goes digging into the murky depths of small town secrets and guilt allied to police corruption. It is well acted, well written, well photographed, and does not overstay its' welcome. Oh, and it has the infamous sheephead scene - be warned!

This is a well made, enjoyable crime thriller that manages to sustain tension and interest throughout its run time and marries this with some well handled comic moments. The main character, Erlunder, is a multi-layered and believable, ageing, seen-it-all-before cop, while the scenes involving discovery of dead bodies are skin-crawlingly well acted and nauseously realistic.However, given the kind of budgets and talent available to producers of TV crime series these days, Jar City suffers from the fact that the plot really could form an episode of CSI:Rejkjavik or, dare I say it Taggart (a old British crime series). There are no huge surprises or twists in the tail - it is, essentially, a standard, old fashioned who/why dunnit.However, what sets Jar City apart from CSI and its ilk is the cinematography. Obviously I've seen images of Iceland before - but I've never seen it captured in such a bleak, but beautiful fashion. Iceland itself is centrally important to the character of this film (and might even be said to be one of the characters) and its strangely picturesque scenery and, in some cases, downright weirdness, make Jar City worth watching just for this alone.

Inspector Erlendur (Ingvar E. Sigurðsson) has to investigate a "messy and pointless" murder. A dirty old man has had his head bashed in in his flat. "Typical Icelandic", he thinks. Iceland just touches the Arctic circle. It's a long way from anywhere else. It is grey and gritty, spectacular and melancholy, buffeted by blasts of wind, snow and steam. Against this background Erlendur doggedly untangles the connections and the crimes of the past, digging up corpses and secrets shameful or tragic. Landscape and society alike are revealed and commented on, drily and laconically.Being based on a novel by Iceland's most successful crime writer, the characters are as well known to the home audience as Rebus, for instance, is in Britain, and carry enough of the baggage of real life to make them credible and sympathetic. There are visual themes of burials and exhumations, post-mortems, pathology labs and fast food, and a sound track of male voices shading into electronic moans and growls, which in turn dissolve into the wind. It's a very well-constructed package, which is thought provoking, gruesome, touching and funny, and it's certainly worth seeing.