Vilnius review: O (2024)
Kino Pavasaris
International Short Film Competition
Winner
Only a handful of films inspire me to think about poetry. Even fewer make me sit for hours thinking about the invisible lines written in between that can be felt with a power of pure emotion. And even though the title of Runar Runarsson’s short drama O (Circle) had been inspired by Steinn Steinarr‘s poem “Outside The Circle“, I had Edith Södergran’s “The Land That Is Not” (1925) – with its devastatingly beautiful words in mind upon watching the movie:
I long for the land that is not,
For all that is, I am weary of wanting.
The moon speaks to me in silvern runes
About the land that is not.
(…)
My life was a burning illusion,
But one thing I have found
and one thing I have really won
-The road to the land that is not.
Grimur (played by one of the country’s greatest living actors, Ingvar E. Sigurðsson) is a man longing for that land that is no more, the one he had known once upon a time and decided to leave. That place is reachable by the sheer power of will he believes to re-posses. Can Grimur really defeat his demons and find the road to “the land that is not” when he gets a unique chance to do it? The Icelandic scriptwriter| director doesn’t make it easy for his leading man, as he stays faithful to life’s simple truths. An easy way is mostly absent from our lives anyway. Anything else would be a complete product of fiction writing and too boring for Runarsson to work with.
Runar Runarsson is the master of storytelling, and none of his films merely depict life, no matter their format, length or topic. In O, the only black & white thing is the photography shot on 16mm film by Sophia Olsson, the Icelandic helmer’s collaborator since his Toronto| San Sebastian contender “Sparrows” (2015), a feature film that more or less deals with a similar topic, but told in a different context and from another, outside perspective. Nine years later, we are sucked into the troubled mind of a man who is too deep in his habit to be able to fight back. His struggle is physical and hurtful to observe. Every look in his direction is a sting in the viewer’s heart: piercing, deep, incurable. We are suffering with Grimur from the beginning to the end. We are also rooting for him, caught in his hamster wheel that can’t stop spinning. It makes sense that he moves in a colourless world of contrasting lights that toss him around like a rag ball.
There is another thing worth addressing, which can be compared to the phenomenon of Italian coffee-making that no other country can top. Even if they have the same machines, the identical origin of coffee beans and people trained to make the brown brew, you barely ever get the proper thing if not in Italy unless you are lucky enough to run into a bar that defies this rule. Now, the same applies to Icelandic movie scores. When Kjartan Sveinsson (of Sigur Rós) gives you the blues, he serves it in a way that you feel the story without being emotionally manipulated. It’s the wizardry of a composer who inhales the essence of the narrative and syncs with it tonally.
The supposed talk about beauty related to this complex, heart-shattering drama is also to be found in the approachability of the script, written with respect for the characters and the audience alike. O is by no means a popcorn movie you’d watch with your family on a Sunday afternoon. It is a deep, uncompromising leap into the abyss of human self-destructive nature, but kind to his broken character, who, unlike in most films dealing with someone in his position, is also treated with love by his daughter Anna (Snæfriður Ingvarsdóttir) and the rest of the family despite (or maybe because) of who he is.
O celebrated its world premiere in the Orizzonti Corti competition of the Venice Film Festival last autumn and has been touring ever since. Earlier this year, it justifiedly brought the Best Performance Award to Sigurðsson at the Clairmont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival and the Audience Award in Tampere, among others. It is undeniably one of the best shorts of 2024, and it is understandable why it has just won the main prize in the international competition in Vilnius.
Original Title: O (hringur)
Country: Iceland
Language: Icelandic
Runtime: 20′
Year of Production: 2024
Production Company: Compass Films
Written| Directed by: Rúnar Rúnarsson
Producers: Heather Millard, Rúnar Rúnarsson
Executive Producers: Claudia Hausfeld, þórður Jónsson, Lilja Ósk Snorradóttir,
Jenny Luukkonen (Film I Väst), Valentina Chamorro Westergårdh (SVT)
Director of Photography: Sophia Olsson
Editor: Rúnar Rúnarsson, Jón Már Gunnarsson
Sound Mixer: Skúli Helgi Sigurgíslason
Sound Designer & Re-recording Mixer: Jesper Miller
Music Composer: Kjartan Sveinsson
Costume Design: Helga Rós V. Hannam
Costumer: Sunneva Thomsen Halldórsdóttir
Production Design: Hulda Helgadóttir
Hair & Make Up Design: Ásta Hafþórsdóttir
Art Director: Aron Ásgerðarson
Set Decorator: Ari Birgir Ágústsson
Main Cast: Ingvar E. Sigurðsson
Supporting Cast: Edda Arnljótsdóttir, Arnfinnur Daníelsson, Vigfús Þormar Gunnarsson, Fjölnir Gíslason, Ingi Hrafn Hilmarsson,
Snæfríður Ingvarsdóttir, Sigurður Ingvarsson, Telma Huld Jóhannesdóttir, Júlíus Þorfinnsso
