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Jar City - Preview

Jar City

Preview by Jack Foley

FANS of rock solid indie thrillers are best to keep their eyes open for the forthcoming Icelandic hit, Jar City, which makes its way into UK cinemas in September.

Based on the Icelandic best-seller Tainted Blood (Icelandic title MÝRIN) by Arnaldur IndriÃason, (winner of the Scandinavian crime writers’ Glass Key Award in 2002), Jar City was also the Icelandic Official Entry for the 2008 Academy Awards and won Best Film in Iceland’s Edda Awards.

Directed by Baltasar Kormakur (of 101 Reyjavik/The Sea fame) the film stars Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson (Beowulf & Grendel) in a role for which he won the Edda Best Actor award, Best Actor in the European Film Awards and the Best Actor, Silver Dolphin Award at the Tróia International Film Festival.

The film picks up as an elderly man is found murdered in his basement flat. Inspector Erlendur (Sigurðsson) and his crew don’t have much to go by in the investigation, but a photograph of a young girl’s grave gives them a lead.

They discover that many years ago the victim was accused, though not convicted, of horrible crimes. Did the old man’s past come back to haunt him? As Erlendur reopens this very cold case, he follows a trail of unusual forensic evidence, uncovering secrets that are much larger than the murder of one old man – with clues that run deep into the genetic bloodline of an entire country.

When the film opened in America earlier this year, it drew some favourable reviews. The New York Times, for instance, wrote: “The picture of Iceland that emerges in Baltasar Kormákur’s Jar City is vivid and powerful but not something the country’s tourist board would be likely to endorse.”

While Time Out New York opined: “The vision of Jar City is total and complete; fans of the thriller genre will thank the film for an infusion of ice-cold new blood.”

Variety stated: “A taut police procedural that craftily blends ripped-from-the-headlines genetic issues with foreboding Icelandic stoicism, Jar City reps a supremely confident stride into mass-appeal genre fare for Icelandic hyphenate Baltasar Kormakur.”

And The New York Observer added: “For those of us, like me, who know next to nothing about Iceland or the Icelandic cinema, Jar City is an absorbingly revelatory experience, and one of the most mesmerizing movies of the year.”

Jar City opens in UK cinemas on September 12, 2008.