Review Movies Cinema: Jar City | Baltasar Kormakur | cold-blooded killer

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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with DAN CARRIER
Published: 11 September 2008

Ingvar Sigurdsson as Erlendur Mýrin

The secrets of a cold-blooded killer in Iceland

JAR CITY
Directed by Baltasar Kormakur
Certificate 15

JAR City is as clever and chilling a thriller as you are likely to see.
It is brilliantly observed, gripping in its application, intelligent as the story unravels in front of you and impossible to second guess. The story stems from a medical plan the Icelandic government instigated in the late 1990s. With the population of the country hovering around 300,000 and having been geographically isolated for so long, it makes an ideal place for genetic experiments. This caused controversy when the government handed over medical files to research companies.
It is based on a best-selling novel by Icelandic author Arnaldur Indridason, who has created Inspector Erlendur as a far northern version of Inspector Morse. Suffice to say, it has been sensitively adapted. We meet bearded cop Erlendur (Ingvar Sigurdsson) as he investigates the murder of a man called Holberg. This leads to a search back in time, uncovering vile crimes committed 30 years ago. The audience are kept guessing, as is our hero Erlendur, as to why Holberg’s death is connected to crimes in the past and the death of a five-year-old girl of a rare illness in a Reykjavik children’s hospital.
Erlendur is fascinating. He smokes a bit, has a junkie daughter in plenty of trouble, and enjoys traditional Icelandic dishes such as sheep’s heads. Food plays an underhand role in many scenes: We are treated to shots of meaty broths being dished up before our detectives uncover decaying cadavers.
Dark as the Iceland winter, bleak as the winds that whisk through our characters, Jar City is quiet and gently paced, but still shocking. As the story unravels, you can’t help but become more gripped. Pieces begin to fall into place and the intelligence of the director and players becomes more and more apparent as the identity of the killer moves closer to being uncovered.
Jar City is intricately told. We get a shoulder’s eye view of a detective as he steps through a case littered with secrets hidden from one generation to the next.

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