Atlantica - Iceland Review

TRUE LIES a
“The scariest thing from Iceland since
Björk in that swan outfit.”
REALITY BITES
Re a l-li fe h e r o e s, t o o, h av e w a s h e d u p on the
sands of Iceland in increasing numbers over
the last few years. In the TV date show The
Bachelorette, Ali looked for love on the island—
and dumped one of the suitors by the lavaspitting
volcano Eyjafjallajökull (“The scariest
thing from Iceland since Björk in that swan
outfit,” as David Letterman put it, though he
might change his mind if he got a good look at
the snow-Björk which the Gilmore Girls built in
tribute to the star). Top Gear visited the volcano
too, in typical laddish style, even taking credit
for its eruption.
The contestants of Britain’s Next Top Model
liked it cold, on the other hand, with a fashion
shoot as fairies (a different kind to the ones you
will find in the Artemis Fowl book) in sub-zero
temperatures at the wintery Blue Lagoon and a
commercial promoting boiled sheep head, svid,
and fermented shark. The girls were somewhat
less keen on the grub than the tub, but in their
defense, they aren’t the only ones to gag in the
face of the island’s culinary delights: In 1936,
young poets W.H. Auden and Louis MacNeice
spent three months in Iceland. In their travel
journal, Letter from Iceland, they recount:
“Dried fish is a staple food in Iceland. This
should be shredded with the fingers and eaten
with butter. It varies in toughness. The tougher
kind tastes like toe nails and the softer kind like
the skin off the soles of one’s feet.”
PRETTY WOMEN
Not o n l y t h e m a j e s t i c l a n d s c a p e s , but the
female inhabitants are renowned for their beauty.
In the 1960s television series Batman, the
terrifying, blue-faced Mr. Freeze’s chosen—and
frozen—one is a blonde Miss Iceland in a swimsuit.
It is not exactly a match made in heaven
though: “I wouldn’t marry you for a 10 billion
dollars!” the beauty queen says, to which the
groom cold-heartedly replies: “In the morning,
I will freeze your beautiful body solid!”
The blonde beautiful ice queens cause a stir
wherever they go. In Neil Gaiman’s acclaimed
American Gods, the protagonist Shadow meets
the god Odinn himself, but has eyes for the
women (alongside cloudberries and puffins)
too. Sex and the City vamp Samantha gets left
for an Icelandic supermodel, Anka, a name you
will never hear in Iceland—and neither will you
hear Stitch, even if the Disney film Lilo & Stitch
suggests otherwise.
In the TV series The Sopranos, it is the stewardesses
of Icelandic Air that cheer up the Italian
mafia party. For Friends’ poor Joey Tribbiani, on
the other hand, Iceland is the only country in
the world from which he hasn’t dated a woman.
Luckily enough, latest date Sara turns out to be
part-Icelandic. A careful viewer of the series—or
one with knowledge of Iceland’s whereabouts—
will question Joey’s bookkeeping though: on a
world map portraying his conquests the mid-
Atlantic country has already been marked with
a red pin.
Icelandic men are big blonde Vikings, universally
silly or sinister. The first type is represented
in 2005 horror flick Hostel in the form of the
backpacker Óli who wears an orange wind coat
with a flag of Iceland on the sleeve, runs after
women and sings a lot. The latter appears in the
TV series Chuck in the form of crossbow wielding
assassin The Icelandic Archer and, most terrifying
of all, in the film D2: The Mighty Ducks 2,
in which the world champion Icelanders, dressed
in black with blonde hair greased back, show no
good will at all and a ton of dirty tricks against
our heroes in The Junior Goodwill Games in
California—not so unlike the Icelandic business
Vikings who terrorized the financial world some
15 years after the movie premiered.
Another recent addition to the Icelandic male
fauna is the international man, such as Carl
of the Simpsons, an Icelandic-African-American
Buddhist, who spent the latter part of his boyhood
in Iceland before moving on to acquire
a masters degree in nuclear physics and a job
alongside Homer at Springfield Nuclear Power
Plant, as well as a taste for bowling and regular
drinks at Moe’s Tavern.
DIRECTOR’S CUT
The b e a u t y o f t h e Ic e l a n d i c f e m i n i n e form
doesn’t go unnoticed in the town of Twin
Peaks either. “I’m in love with Heba, she is this
giant snow queen smile like a sunrise on an
ice flow you could go blind. See what she gave
me—a giant lamb leg!” Jerry declares, as the
Icelandic business delegation arrives at the Great
Northern hotel.
The Icelanders drink, sing and dance in their
woolen sweaters hard enough to earn the
description “most god awful racket” from Agent
Cooper in one of his voice memos. Other well
earned titles include “fair-haired boys”, “a large
group of insane men”, “insane Nordic animals”
and “tundra tycoons”.
Director David Lynch himself arrived in
Iceland in 2009 in order to help the suffering
nation via transcendental meditation classes at
a discount rate.
Another iconic director, Quentin Tarantino,
who produced the aforementioned Hostel, spent
New Year’s Eve in Iceland in 2005 and 2006, and
described the celebrations in Late Night with
Conan O’Brien: “I’m in a room full of supermodels
who were drunk out of their mind standing
on a table, going, ‘Let’s get the party started.’
I’m like, ‘Where have I been all my life?’” He also
reported that in Iceland, the supermodels work
in McDonalds. Don’t get too excited though—
following the financial crash, McDonalds packed
its bags and fled the country.
Director Christopher Nolan came to Iceland
for Batman Begins, but the weather left him little
time for the ladies. The crew shot in 75-milean-hour
wind, and Nolan was quoted as saying,
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