Neil Young’s Film Lounge – Angels of the Universe

Published on: March 23rd, 2004

ANGELS OF THE UNIVERSE

5/10

Englar Alheimsins : Iceland 2000
director : Fridrik Thor Fridriksson
script : Einar Mar Gudmundsson (based on his novel)
cinematography : Harald Paalgard
editing : Sigvaldi J Karason, Skule Eriksen
music : Hilmar Orn Hilmarsson
lead actors : Ingvar E Sigurdsson, Baltasar Kormakur, Bjorn Jorundur Fridbjornsson, Margret Helga Johannsdottir
also : Halldora Geirhardsdottir, Petur Einarsson, Hilmir Snaer Gudnason, Thor Tulinius
97 minutes

Paul (Sigurdsson) is an artistic, thirtysomething Icelander with mental health problems. After he’s dumped by his girlfriend Dagny (Geirhardsdottir), his increasingly violent behaviour overwhelms his ineffectual parents. He’s then taken to a mental hospital where he is diagnosed schizophrenic and befriends scruffy Oli (Kormakur), a musician claiming to be the author of all the Beatles’ songs, and dapper Viktor (Fridbjornsson), who (occasionally) believes himself to be Hitler. Paul’s condition apparently stabilises under treatment and he’s allowed home – but he’s a long way from being well…

Angels is often fantastic to look at, and even better to listen to – but Paalgaard’s impressive cinematography and Hilmarsson’s atmospheric, eclectic soundtrack can’t hide the script’s grindingly over-familiar convolutions. This is a strictly by-the-numbers exploration of mental illness, with a thoroughly predictable structure as Paul rises and falls, rises and falls. Sigurdsson’s central performance is serviceable enough, but – like the project as a whole - firmly within the established parameters of this type of drama. Johannesdottir (as Paul’s mother) and Kormakur do, however, contribute relatively restrained, low-key performances, that belong in another, better movie. A movie, for instance, that avoids makes Gudmundsson’s trite points about the artificial division between sane and normal people, and about the mental health of society as a whole.

The cliches accumulate almost as fast as the loose ends: Dagny completely vanishes from the scene early on, and is never referred to again. Rognvald (Tulinius), Paul’s conventionally successful best friend, likewise comes and goes in a distractingly unfocussed manner. Paul’s hospital acquaintance Petur (Gudnason) is another underdeveloped character, making it all the odder that so much of the late going revolves around the latter’s melodramatic back story.

The film’s highlight comes when Oli takes Paul along as he pays an impromptu visit to the Icelandic president – in what’s presumably the official residence: a cosy and small-scale structure, exactly what you’d expect from such a cosy, small-smale country. But even here, Kormakur is let down by Gudmundsson and Fridriksson’s uncertainty of tone: the scene ends with the audience unsure whether we’re watching fantasy or reality. In more skilled hands, the ambiguity might be productive. Not so here.

By the end, even Fridriksson’s visual daring starts to grate, with a distracting over-reliance on having characters fade from view while their surroundings remain vivid. Worse, he repeats unpleasant footage of a horse breaking down: a potentially potent, poetic image that ends up feeling opportunistic, cheaply manipulative and arbitrarily distressing.

5th January, 2002 {re-edited 3rd October, 2010)
(seen on video, Jan-4-02)

by Neil Young

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