'Screaming Masterpiece' review
Global warming may melt Iceland's ice, but their musical heritage is solid
By Melody Caraballo
Published: March 2nd, 2007 | 11:22am
Milan Records, 88 minutes
Two platinum, one gold. No, not Lil' Wayne's bling. Björk's albums--of which she has sold over 15 million, making her the most recognizable figure in Icelandic music, through the impish frame, boundary-pushing videos, acting forays, and mind-melting voice may help a tad. But to overemphasize her in a documentary about the music scene in the land of the midnight sun would be an offense. Screaming Masterpiece writer and director Ari Alexander Engus Magnússon attempts less to answer why there are so many musicians proliferating in this small country of 300,000 and more to explore objectively, sometimes to the detriment of definitiveness.
What's evident is that 75 percent of Iceland is in a band, most are in two or three. Of course, Bang Gang's Bardi Johannsson says the music's "mostly crap." To convey the variety of music artists, Magnússon opens on glacial landscapes and surveys from the center of activity in Reykjavik to sleepy, secluded little towns, cutting from Sigur Rós's stage show to high-schoolers NilFisk. Not all interviews are intriguing (forgo watching dude get "Johnny" tattooed on his chest), but the sheer volume of artists and assortment of musical styles far outweighs the too-long montage of post-show partygoers (dude later puts mic down his pants). A small, recently colonialized country's art communities could easily become insular, but Screaming Masterpiece shows individuals unafraid of new technologies (the Kraftwerkian Apparat Organ Quartet), non-instrument instruments (Múm and Slowblow's saw blades and garbage cans), or to embrace farmland folk (the rich twanging of Mugison), while preserving their heritage.
Disappointingly, amidst the seizure-inducing editing of concert footage, interviews, and sci-fi graphics, Magnússon skirts around the heart of the matter, and what could be America's chagrin--the Icelandic government supports over 90 music schools and recognizes nearly 400 orchestras. Seems the country's head pagan is right, "music is built into their national character."
Issue #13
Comments
Please login to be able to comment on this article.
more