Great towering glaciers and frozen lakes and azure skylines hung precariously in the heavens like a cracked windscreen dangling 'tween the metal frame on God's own Volvo.
Vapors and mists hovering about the ice like opium smoke.
Gurgling, discombobulating wounds on the surface of the earth.
These opening images, they invite a number of loose associations and stereotypes to come jiggering and jiving up front the lobes; desolation, isolation, mythology, the footprints of the Vikings, tiny communities huddled about Lutheran church halls.
In-between the talking heads and the shredded violas and the incredible music and the drunken romping peppering Screaming Masterpiece's hour and a half run-time, we return time and again to those black beaches and silver pastures, mountain vistas and wetland sprawls, the resultant impression being that the creative genius on display every direction is as integral to the country as its topography or its history, and that each element feeds off the other.
Rather than douse the celluloid with a wild amount of analysis or critique or sociology or what have you, however, Magnússon, a noted painter outside of his film work, approaches his subject in much the same fashion as a 15th century artist might have gone about crafting a fresco mural depicting maybe the destruction of Gomorrah, or the life of King David. He incorporates most everyone anyone might deem half-ways relevant, and works hard on establishing a mood (one of self-sustaining community and artistic freedom and cultural isolation), but Screaming Masterpiece serves better as a gorgeous-looking (and sounding) primer to further examination than as an exhaustive, comprehensive stand-alone investigation.
It's more concerned with evoking the feel of the music, the feel of the country, than going into anything in any real depth.
That said, it does at least attempt to answer, to varying degrees of success, a handful of core questions the lay-folk might well have rattling about the skulls soon as anyone might mention that Iceland is near to bowing with the weight of the musical gorgeousity erupting from therein.
It wants to tell us Who The Hell These People Are.
It wants to let us hear What The Hell These People Sound Like.
It wants to at least suggest a couple reasons for Why The Hell Those Sounds Sound As They Do.
For to settle the first concern, being Who The Hell These Folk Are, Anyroad, Screaming Masterpiece gathers about its jodhpurs a pleasingly diverse bunch of artistes and ensembles and assorted scenesters, some of whom share Sigur Rós' fondness for the ethereal, cerulean soundscapes, others who prefer to grasp at the coat-tails of less obviously "Icelandic" inspirations, be they Public Enemy or Nirvana or Sham 69 or whoever.
Article comments
1 - Jon Sobel
Cool, I am going to look out for this DVD that you so righteously describe. Also this might be the most awesome review of yours that my eye-holes have yet beheld. All of the legendary Duker stylations plus extreme focus.
2 - Duke De Mondo
jon, i thank you no end, and my god, just last night i was lamenting to my ladyfriend, beautiful ms gillian, that i had just submitted a review to blogcritics that may be the most nonsensical, ill-considered, pointless mess i've ever scribbled, and that i may well have some apologising to do to all concerned once the folks who sent the material get to reading it. i don't say that for to have all "oh, not at all, it rocks" etc but for to illustrate the relief i felt there now; "extreme focus"!
i really am very very suprised at that, and pleased, also. maybe i couldn't make sense of it when reading it back because i've got the flu...
either way, thank you very much, and yes, keep an eye out for the flick, it's well worth a gander, is my opinion on the matter.
3 - Duke De Mondo
jon, i just left a lengthy comment thanking you for the "extreme focus" remark, owing to how i was shittin it that this made no sense. sadly, the comment was lost to the ones and the zeroes for some reason. but thank you, was all i said really, and also, yes, keep an eye out for the flick. some astounding stuff in there.
4 - Duke De Mondo
jon, i tried a few times to say thank you, and my comments keep dissapearing, so third time lucky, thank you very much, particulary for the "extreme focus" remark, since i was wailin to my ladyfriend just last night that this was nonsense that lacked anythin approachin focus. so nice to know it made sense to you. maybe it's cause i'm used to havin NO focus, so havin some seems weird to read back. i dunno. anyhow, thank you!
5 - Aaron Fleming
Superb Duke, as always, focused AND poetic!
6 - gillian
great review, and you were stewin a bit over this. there was no need to worry; another excellent article :) xo