Jar City

Icelander Arnaldur Indriason caused quite a buzz when he broke into the English-language crime scene a few years ago with his novel, Jar City (now translated as Tainted Blood). In it, he uses the apparently motiveless killing of a middle-aged loner to examine a hot topic in his homeland; because of its small and largely homogenous population, Iceland has become something of a real-life laboratory for DNA research.

It’s not always easy to transform a novel of ideas onto the big screen. Baltasar Kormákur succeeds thanks to the simple recourse of sticking faithfully to the book, which will come as something of a thrill to Indriðason’s ever growing number of fans.

Kormákur is bold enough to capture a sense of the larger picture with stunning overhead shots, both of the countryside and row-upon-row of box-like houses, as if assembled in some genetic code of their own. The plot’s darkness is exacerbated by a grim humour, notably linked to food (even in Iceland cops drink coffee and eat doughnuts on stake-outs, it seems).

That the main investigation proceeds on a straight narrative line makes Jar City, the film, resemble a high-end, one-off TV drama of the sort we so rarely see these days. It’s a simple approach that offers admirable pay offs, not least in the unusual casting of Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson as the crabby lead, Inspector Erlendur. However, it also makes for a relatively dry kind of storytelling that might not be enough to satisfy non-crime aficionados.

Jonas Milk

Anticipation:

The big screen version of an excellent novel.

Enjoyment:

Grimly fascinating.

In Retrospect:

Will put you off going to Iceland for life.