HUSAVIK - HUSAVIK, Iceland - This is a little folk story with worldly elements such as elves. And gleaming statuettes of gold. There are also several nice things that happened in a small town in Iceland, which improbably set itself the stage for a major Hollywood film and now has become the nominee for the best original song for the Academy award. for sale
The 2020 Netflix comedy "Eurovision Song Contest: The Fire Saga Story" certainly is not high art. A review of critics' reviews on the Rotten Tomatoes website gave it a 63% fresh mark. "Not one film so much as two hours of lump-free, vague film-like audiovisual paste," said Robbie Collin in the Telegraph Newspaper. This isn't "Nomadland." It's not.
But if the film is stupid it is also cute, and the audience sits on its sofas in the midst of a pandemic.
The film traces the bow of the Lars Erickssong and Sigrit Ericksdottir (siblings probably not, their last names are re-reading), played by Will Farrell and Rachel McAdams, originally from the actual but fictionalized fishing village of Husavik on the North coast of Island (2 300 inhabitants) (population 341,243).
After a boat explodes with the most important singers on board in Iceland, Lars and Sigrit are elected for Eurovision, the Sequin Olympics of Kitsch and the most watched, over-the-top musical extravagance of the non-sport event in the world, although mostly overlooked by Americans.
The finale of the film is a tear-jerker with McAdams synchronizing the oscar-nominated song "Husavik (My Hometown)," which was largely performed with lyrics like: Swedish performer Molly Sandén:
"Where the mountains sing the screams of the moose/
"Where the whales are able to live because they are gentle people/
"It's in my hometown..."
Pre-show of an Oscar Sunday will include the recording in the real Husavik of Sandén singing "Husavik." And the townspeople look forward to a win. They have produced spoofy promotional videos about their city and "what may be Husavik's most important night."
"Of course, everyone makes fun of us. But we funny ourselves, so it's no problem," said The Washington Post to Orlygur Orlygsson, who owns a hotel and runs the Exploration Museum in Husavik. "We loved the movie and we loved it."
[Is this a 'Oscar asterisk' or a symbol of future things?]
How's the real city? "It's small," said Orlygsson. "Everyone knows everybody, everybody knows." He said that well, but he added that the city had long, cool and dark winters, and had been locked down due to the coronavirus, and there were no visitors. "People felt down, I think," he said.
In Husavik there are a few drink establishments and a few small hotels, and some movie stars visited the hot springs in the mountain facing the sea. "We usually wear suits for bathing," he said.
The city once lived from fishing, but now it relies on tourism and watching whales. The Apollo astronauts trained there for their mission in the 1960s. Why? "NASA was searching for a moon-like place and they're picking us," Orlygsson said.
In Husavik, Steingrimur Hallgrimsson, 73, was a retired truck driver. "I never wanted anywhere else to live," he said. "This is the world's navel for me." He said he didn't watch the film yet, but he loved the song with some Icelandic lyrics.
Sigurdur Illugason is a long-time actor in the theater troupe of the city and he did in a film scene that was cut off. But in the promotional videos he stars like Oskar Oskarsson, "the only Oskar in Husavik today."
"I've been trying to live two years in Reykjavik," he told the Washington Post, "but it was just home and moved home."
"I'm a rural rat," he said. He said.
Kristny Geirsdottir, 20, a theatre- and hotel worker, said "like a bubble in Husavik, it feels rather weird to go somewhere else." She marveled, "Imagine someone else is watching this film somewhere in Japan, Poland or anywhere in the world and they know what it is, it's really fun."
The priest in the city is Solveig Kristjansdottir. "It's a blessing for this song," she said. "Something that made us proud, although, to be honest, we did nothing."
All children in the city, Icelandic and English, can sing the song. "We know the humor," she said. She said.
Outsiders believe it is funny that people still believe in the elves in Iceland. "It's true. It's true. It's our patrimony. Now, young people are asking, has Grandpa seen an elf?"
The priest said everyone in the city will stay in Iceland time in the early hours to see if the song prevails.
"If we don't win, our hearts won't break. How are you saying? We won already," she said. We won already. "In difficult times, it brought the city together."