ZiggyFloydZeppelin

Den Brysomme Mannen is one of the better films of all time and is about a man trapped in a world where there are no senses, no feelings, no Love, no Truth and definitely no Freedom. A world where people become afraid when someone speaks their mind, expresses himself or show affection, a world where no one is Free and no one has any idea what the Meaning of any of this is. Just like the world we live in, the world in Den Brysomme Mannen is a world of lost souls trying to become fulfilled but focus on the complete opposite of what fulfills them, materialism, social acceptance and mediocre satisfactions.

Den Brysomme Mannen deserves full attention by every human soul, because we could all use a fresh Wake Up call.

I saw this short on youtube and have watched it twice and probably will watch it again. Camera deals with an aging actor that has passed his prime, both in life and career vise. The old man talks to the screen about life, acting and the effects a camera that ,,the children" brought home will have on them all. He speaks about the camera as it were a curse that would destroy them all as the children make the camera and other film equipment ready to film the old man.

In over six minutes Cronenberg manages smoothly to summon up the most common human flaw: fear, and its effect. As soon as the old man finishes talking about the terrible effect the camera will have on them and the children start filming the old man starts lying and the short film changes from being realistic to being a fraud.

After watching this film I finally ,,discovered" Cronenberg and what it is that he has been trying to say with pretty much all of his films. Cronenberg has dedicated his career into revealing the ugliness behind mechanism by connecting it with monstrous things such as the scientist who becomes a fly, the victims of a car crash who become perverse, the TV producer who becomes illusional, computer game players who can't separate the game from reality, the exterminator who starts sniffing bug spray and also becomes illusional and can't separate truth from imagination, and most of his other work like in Dead Ringers, Scanners and The Dead Zone and probably in his older work that I have yet not reviewed. They are all trying to examine the horrifying side of machinery and the cause it will have on us in the end. Camera is the piece of film that made me realise the genius of David Cronenberg, even though I had loved most of the films I have seen by him I now have a more profound respect for him and I'm going to watch all of his work that I can get my hands into.

Camera - 10 out of 10.

This hysterical short by the funniest man on Iceland, Jón Gnarr, is definitely one of the funniest and most clever shorts i've ever seen. The story is simple and yet brilliant and the actors give a great performance that'll leave you laughing in tears at their finest moments. Með mann á bakinu (With a Man on your Back) is about two strangers who meet on a mountain, they decide to walk down it together but as they're about to cross a river one of them seems to have a problem with getting wet so he asks the other one to carry him on his back. The other one is glad to do so and carries him on his back like a horse. But as they get to the other side the man on the back doesn't want to get of because of all the sharp rocks lying on the river bank and asks him to carry him a little further, the man does so. A little further he comes up with another reason why he doesn't want to get of his back and manages to get the other one to carry him all the way down the mountain. I don't want to describe everything that happens in this short you should see it for yourself, especially all the icelanders who know and understand Jón Gnarr's humor, but watching him riding a mans back like he was a horse will without a doubt make you at least giggle icelandic or foreign.