Atlantica - Iceland Review

a TRUE LIES
“We come from the land of the ice and snow,
from the midnight sun where
the hot springs blow”
“Our first day of shooting was out on a frozen
lake—and the ice was cracking the way it’s supposed
to in the film, which was very unnerving.
It was a pretty extreme way to start a film like
this.” In the film, the Skaftafell glacial tongue
plays the Himalayan foothills. Other impersonations
by Iceland include Siberia for Lara Croft:
Tomb Raider (in which a fur clad, dog sledding,
Russian army duck driving Angelina Jolie surfs
the glacial lagoon Jökulsárlon) and the black
sands of Japan for Clint Eastwood’s war film duo
of Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima.
SOUND OF MUSIC
The o t h e r wo r l d l y s o u n d s of Björk and Sigur
Rós have traveled the world and under the
ocean, whether in the BBC’s Planet Earth soundtrack,
Children of Men, Vanilla Sky or The Life
Aquatic, but they’re not the only ones to have
been inspired by the Icelandic landscapes.
Bing Crosby sang his ode to a favorite salmon
fishing river,
“You’ll dream of all that fishing on the Laxa
and all those other brawling rivers,
Lovely Iceland, Land of salmon,
Whether you have lost or won,
You’ll return again to Iceland
And the land of the midnight sun.”
Led Zeppelin arrived on the island in the mid-
70s to open their tour around Iceland, Bath and
Germany. Legendary track “Immigrant Song”
was written in the country, proudly proclaiming,
“We come from the land of the ice and
snow, from the midnight sun where the hot
springs blow” (the midnight sun was less of an
inspiration to Jenna from 30 Rock, who couldn’t
shoot her “sexy supernatural thriller, in the vein
of Twilight and True Blood” with werewolves
due to lack of darkness). Going several steps
further, violinist, multi-instrumentalist Eyvind
Kang composed an entire experimental album
inspired by his childhood in the country, fittingly
titling it The Story of Iceland.
The Stranglers held their Black and White
debut party and concert, flying in their own
core of British hacks for the event, while the
new-wave British band Echo and the Bunnymen
posed with the waterfall Gullfoss on the cover
of their album Porcupine, echoing the frigid feel
of the music on the album. The photographer
Brian Griffin, another Iceland aficionado, later
said of the session, “The sun barely appeared the
whole time we were there. To walk, stand up, or
just think seemed a massive effort”.
Some artists thought it best to stay indoors.
Former Sporty-spice, Mel C, shot her video
“Never Be the Same Again” entirely at the Blue
Lagoon... gym. Her sister in song, Mel B, did get
to grips with the rugged beauty of the country,
dating local hunk Fjölnir Thorgeirsson during
the Spice fame. Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s video for
“Today the Sun’s Upon Us” barely steps out of
Hótel Borg. Showing their macho chops on the
other hand, Take That hit the rocky terrain for
the video to come back single “Patience”, foolhardily
sporting microphone stands in place of
hiking gear.
FRIENDS
In a s m a l l c o u n t r y , all these visitors don’t go
unnoticed. Ever since Led Zeppelin, anyone
with 15 minutes of fame and a foreign passport
to even remotely enjoy a visit to the island has
earned the title “friend of Iceland”, Íslandsvinur.
From president Bill Clinton, who had a hotdog
at the Reykjavík booth Baejarins Bestu, to
Harrison Ford, who ate at the Indian restaurant
Austurindíafélagid, and from Damon Albarn,
who used to own a part of his favorite watering
hole Kaffibarinn (and has a house in Reykjavík) to
Paris Hilton, who drank Icelandic Glacial water
(a drink also favored by Geek-extraordinaire
Sheldon in hit sitcom Big Bang Theory). Not to
mention Microsoft millionaire Paul Allen, whose
yacht floated on the coastal waters of Reykjavík,
Gael García Bernal, Natalia Vodianova, Vladimir
Ashkenazy, Nick Cave, Mark E. Smith, Bobby
Fischer, Al Gore, Kiefer Sutherland, Kiri Te
Kanawa, Prince Charles, Swedish King Carl
Gustaf, Victoria Abril, Cameron Diaz, Tommy
Lee, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono... For such a little
land she sure has plenty of friends.
And why wouldn’t she? Distant, northern, volcanic
and mysterious, with lava, glaciers, whales
and trolls, Iceland is abundant in the magic that
has entranced its friends and continues to fire
the imaginations of the ones that never made
it there—as author Jorge Luis Borges put it,
“Iceland of the seas, How lucky all men are that
you exist.” a
20 atlantica