Fullt hús (2024) Grand Finale
IMDb meta-data is a runtime of 1h and 24m, rated 6.5 by 177 cineastes.
Genre: Comedy.
DNA: Iceland.
Verdict: Four hoots and one holler!
Tagline: Yin and Yang.
Reykjavík’s only chamber orchestra is going down the fiscal drain. Its last diehard six members often outnumber the paying customers in the decaying concert hall it owns. In addition to the musicians there is a stage manager cum electrician-handyman and a makeup artist who also does the tea and sweeps up. These eight depend on an Arts Council grant to keep up the façade of the theatre and the orchestra, but…. Yes the budget cutters are at it again. Around the world they have learned that cutting education and arts is easy and has little political blowback.
The orchestra’s leader does not take no for an answer but that is still the answer. No more Icy krónas are coming from the 400,000 taxlings who prefer rugby. Accordingly, it is almost too good to be true when the one and only world-famous cellist born of Iceland announces in Tokyo that he is leaving the world stage to return home. Instantly Leader makes full frontal contact and they agree to a gala return performance.
Yep, if it seems almost too good to be true, then in cinema it surely and certainly is. This cellist’s music is yang but he is yin: He makes beautiful music and is a scumbag. Oh well, the show must go on, and the locals grin and bare it, literally in some cases. All of that was predictable, but then….the unpredictable starts happening and goes on. Delicious irony ensues when the puppeteer arrives with her staple gun. See it to believe it. Laughter follows. Much.
Not sure what to make of the implicit message though. Does the music critic labour under cultural cringe so that nothing local can be good? If an audience expects beautiful music then is that what it hears? Was the orchestra that good all along? Or did the challenge of working with a totemic figure bring out the best in them, and unite them (in crime)? Also unresolved was the raised eyebrow of the chief of police.
P.S. Stay in your seat for the coda!
***
We saw it at the Scandinavian film festival aptly called ‘Go North’ in Leichhardt at the very comfortable Palace cinema. It started on time, the preliminary adverts were not nearly as numbing as they usually are at the Dendy Newtown nor were there any Hollywood kapow previews, and it ended without a fuss. These facts contrast with the experience to the Czech and Slovak film Festival screening we attended a few months ago at the Dendy that started very late, featured the worst of Val Morgan advertising (!) followed by trailers galore, and had a long tail-end. On the other hand the Czech and Slovak session seemed more a community event while the Scandinavian one felt like an advertising campaign.