Customer Reviews

Noi

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

In the spare and poetic "Noi the Albino," the title character is a seventeen-year-old gifted underachiever who lives with his grandmother in a dreary little village on the coast of northern Iceland. This would be a harsh, isolated environment for anyone to grow up in, but it is particularly trying for a misfit adolescent with few social skills and no real hope for the future. Noi, whose generally aloof, alcoholic father lives on his own in a different part of town, spends most of his time trudging purposelessly through the snowy streets of the village or holing up in the basement room he's carved out for himself as a kind of sanctuary from a world too utterly depressing to contemplate. Bored by school and bereft of friends, this young man drifts through life, dreaming of the day when he will be able to live on a very different kind of island in the South Seas, a location light years removed from this place where the interiors are every bit as stark and forbidding as the white-on-white world outside.

"Noi the Albino" is one of those films in which the very lack of anything significant happening becomes the central theme and message of the work. Noi lives a life that is so uneventful and boring that it would drive virtually any one of us to the brink of madness. We hardly blame him when we see him dozing through his classes at school or pilfering change from a mock slot machine set up in the local restaurant. Yet, despite the fact that virtually nothing of consequence happens, the film itself is a fascinating mood piece that seeps into our bones and makes us sympathize with the plight of the strange young man who occupies center stage in the drama. Most of the adults in Noi's life seem to sense his potential, but, for some reason, he is totally unwilling to tap into it. What's impressive about the film is that it doesn't try to explain why that is, though we sense it has something to do with the stifling environment in which he lives. Noi becomes emblematic of all people who lead lives of quiet desperation, tucked away in remote, virtually uninhabitable corners of the globe, far removed from the bustle and excitement that can be found only in places with large and diverse populations.

As Noi, Tomas Lemarquis gives a beautiful, subtle performance, creating a compelling and complex character using little more than body language and facial expressions. The final moments of the film are truly heartbreaking as Noi learns the value of what he has - even though, at that point, the realization comes too late.

Written and directed by Dagur Kari with an artist's eye for lyricism and austerity, this is a bleak but intriguing little film that will stay in your mind long past the closing credits.

Boston's Museum of Fine Arts showed the film NOI ALBINOD a while back, and it looked intriguing, but I missed it and had to wait until the DVD release. Now that I have had the chance to view it, I found it a curious mixture of comedy and heartache and highly original. The film tells the story of an alienated youth who is misunderstood by those around him, a familiar enough genre, but it tells the story in a fresh way. The film's setting is a small town in Iceland and is probably what we would stereotypically think of small town life in this region of the world. It is cold all the time, there is plenty of snow on the ground, and the overall atmosphere is bleak. Noi is someone we would expect to meet in such a town. He may have dreams larger than his community, but we do not see evidence of it though we would not be surprised if this is the case. I'm not sure it's all that easy to sympathize with Noi, but in many ways this is why the film is so masterful. Noi is disconnected from the world and the filmmaker makes the viewer feel his disconnection. His lovable, but somewhat daft grandmother is the only caring figure in his life and has the responsibility of raising him. His father is drunk most of the time and an overall loser. The closest thing to a mentor in his life is a used bookstore owner who believes Keirkegaard is worthless. He has a daughter Iris who is Noi's love interest. There is no real plotline, and the film does end on a tragic note.

There are also small humorous touches in the film, especially around the food Noi eats. He cannot successfully rob a bank or escape from the police. Iris' father wears a t-shirt that says "New York F***ing City" is also an amusing detail.

NOI ALBINOD is probably not a film I will watch over and over again, but it is a movie that captures a viewer's interest and makes a person think.

Enjoy!

This is a great film... at times a black comedy, at others, absurd, poignant and dramatic. A quote on the box cover likens the film to Donnie Darko or Rushmore (which are two strange movies to liken to each other in the first place) and that's hard to understand in any tangible sense, other than that all three center around a bizarre teenager. There are more parallels with Donnie Darko, but nothing very close.
This film is somehow escapes being depressing and falling off into psychotic melodrama (like Rosie or The Princess and the Warrior), and doesn't push any message to center stage, and avoids the pitfalls of becoming a morality piece or some sappy tale of a misfit.
It's really well done and will have you thinking on it for quite some time. The scenery is bleak, yet interesting. The soundtrack is wonderful and the acting is quite good.

(This rating is based upon the dvd Noí Albinoí, released in Iceland.)

This movie is wonderfully subtle, dark and beautiful. The opening scene is amazing. Dagur Kári has definitely done an incredible job.

I did not realize this film's international potential when I was visiting Iceland last summer and i picked this movie up, but i was amazed at how stunning the flick is. It's not so surprising that, after 101 Reykjavík, more attention is paid to iceland's limited film industry.

I will also have to say that the soundtrack is excellent! Pick that up as well if you like Iron and Wine or 'Bonnie Prince Billy'.

Noi is an introverted teenager who's very intelligent almost bordering on genius, but because most people around him can't understand him, they think he's slow. He lives reclusively with no friends, a strange grandmother who he hardly communicates with, and an alcoholic father who he finds himself parenting. Noi is bored out of his skull living in a dreary Icelandic town. He tries to amuse himself by getting drunk; chasing the only girl they show in the film, and rebelling in school. The film although moving slow had eeriness, filmed purposely with greenish hues over the icy landscapes and mountains to make the audience feel the coldness and bleakness of Noi's life and that of Iceland, which was quite effective and sent a chill into your bones. The plot was simple and dark and then comes the avalanche that unfortunately kills everyone in town except Noi and then he is set free.

This film sticks to you like a tongue to a winter lamp post. The actors are incredibly real and the landscape startlingly brilliant. Definitely worth having in a film library.

NOI is not only poetic and well constructed, Mr. Dagur Kari really knows how to use scenes with effects and no money. Lately icelandic movies are getting very good , the actors are amazing and the stories are just good enough unlike most new movies in other countries, I even liked the props, very eighties.

Thumbs up ICELAND

Noi is truly one of those films that intentionally has a purpose to make you ambivalent and get mixed feelings about the character and the story itself. And it's also one of those films that is intentionally slow so that you can actually relate to how the character feels. It doesn't hinder the plot or dig holes in it, everything that the film shows on the screen has a purpose, regardless if it may seem pointless or flat on the surface. Everything from the very stark scenery of Iceland, the dull depiction of the environment, and the sometimes strange characters is meant to shock, amaze, and surprise us. This is real filmmaking. Although the director didn't intentionally make a realistic depiction of Iceland, you can still somewhat admire the ethereal and strange aurora that is emitted on the screen. If only most films were this original, unique, and artistic. What's also great about this film are the DVD extras, a great bonus to such a very haunting and profound film! It's funny, sad, heart aching, and most of all, believable. I highly recommend it.

This film was unique and profound. Its underlying messages are very humanistic... people in their most passionate moments can relate to this boy's urge to escape, to claim his freedom, to run faster than the law. The movie is slow at first, but sets up a feeling of redundancy and of being trapped on an unhospitable frozen island. Noi is largely expressionless and is hard to understand until the end, when his true nature is revealed. His most desperate and frantic attempt to escape ends in irony. The fact that he embarasses himself, empties his bank account, and steals a car would make for one of two desireable outcomes from such extreme measures; Either he succeeds, or the world as he knows it ends. This movie carries subtle mysticism and a sort of poetic justice, in which Noi really does get what he asks for, to have a new life away from such boredom, albeit not as pleasantly as planned.

Noi is a seventeen year old teenager who lives with his grandmother. He is rebellious on a personal level regarding school and his personal habits, he smokes and drinks. He is not exactly disrespectful but simply is an individual who follows his own inclinations which has a tendency to get him into trouble. The fjord in Iceland where he lives is limited ... His father is an alcoholic and there is no background given regarding his mother. The film contrasts the stark cold climate in which he lives with the emotional disconnection he feels on the whole about life. Noi feels constrained, he wants something else but does not see a way out. The film explores his personal behavior and how it affects those around him ... It is a deep and haunting film which has an unexpected shake-up type ending. However the ending is open-ended. It leaves the viewer hanging, to ponder how Noi may use the experience to grow into maturity and adulthood or it may be the curve which drives him into the depths of despair. Whichever path he chooses, the event which happened will seriously affect him for the remainder of his life ...

Before this disastrous event, he challenges authority and gets involved with petty crime. He meets an attractive girl named Iris, who is visiting her father from the south of Iceland. It seems she needs to get away from city life according to her father. She jokes about wanting to leave Iceland and explore the world. Noi takes her litterally, walking together one night, he breaks the glass door to the local museum where they nearly get caught by the guards. They find an interactive map which lets them see what different parts of the world are like ... After this date, he buys new clothes, steals a car, and goes to meet Iris, challenging her to make a break with him. She sees the absurdity of this action and can't believe he took her seriously ... His brother bails him out of jail ... Prior to this, he was expelled from school for playing hookey too often. Just when it seems Noi has reached the end of his rope, a turning point, disaster strikes, his world is shaken up and nearly destroyed. This is a haunting and existential film which explores the depths of one lonely teenager's life ... and makes him face the realities of life. Erika Borsos [pepper flower]