Les anges de l'univers

This is the best Icelandic movie ever made, brilliant acting, directing and music. It moves you and it shows you something new, teaches you but also entertains you. You should also read the book if you can but I don't know if it is available in English. A must see.

As far as I know this was my first experience with Icelandic movies. It's such a relief to see something else than your regular Hollywood motion picture. Too bad that movies like this one have a small chance of succeeding in the big world. I can only hope that people watch this by accident, by recommendation or other...

Because it's really worth while. I left the cinema feeling really sad. I couldn't get the tragic destiny's of the characters out of my head. And it impressed me even more when I thought of the complexity of the film. Not only was it a tragic story, it had excellent comic reliefs and a very good soundtrack.

If you have the opportunity, watch it! It's really thought provoking and made me ponder a lot.

Ok, let me start. I´ve seen this movie about a year ago (in a special cycle, since it didn´t arrive on the regular circuit, as most Scandinavian cinema...) & it moved me like very few. It may be somewhat naïve and even simplistic at times, but this adds to its deepness. At the end, I was literally apathic, not wanting to be close to anyone neither to talk. The OST is also truly fabulous - Mr Hilmar Hilmarsson & Sigur Rós have done a truly stunning ambient work, carrying the film to a whole new dimension. In all, this is a uniquely stunning, profoundly depressive and amazingly beautiful movie, from a distant yet so close cinematography, of which I hope to see more (I´d heard of the film years before I actually had the chance to behold it...). So, for all you unshallow souls & admirers of beauty in/ through sadness, this comes as highly advisable (9 in 10, no doubt)piece of Scandinavian moviescapism. I think the only problem with it is the angst which it leaves - which... in what films concerns, is hardly negative. Congratulations to Mr Fridrik Fridriksson & the rest of the Icelandic (wonderful country, btw...) cast. Unique masterpiece.

Upon first viewing I liked this movie but I didn´t think it was all that great and very overhyped. The acting was good no doubt about that but it seemed to lack in something and some things were missing. I read the book few months later which this movie is based on and I fell in love with it. The book is a bit different from the movie and we get to know the character from he is born until he´s dead as opposed to this movie we only get to see few years in his life.

What I didn´t like about it was it tried to be so depressing when it didn´t have to be. The music by Hilmar and Sigurros tried to do something to us that obviously the film makers thought they weren´t able to. This was way too distracting. It was also very and I mean very annoying. The movie was also far to heavy. The book had much lighter tone to it and even though the movie had some funny scenes in it there and there it felt like a drag and sometimes it were just snapshots and more.

There seemed also to be lack of character developments and you couldn´t get to know him quite well to understand what he was going through. Why did he go insane in the first place.

This was however a difficult task for both the writer and the director considering that it is based on a person that they knew. Einar Már writes the screenplay which is based on his book that is based on his brothers life that wen´t insane and eventually killed himself but the movie just didn´t capture the wibe of the book. I didn´t feel all to sorry for the characters or anything.

overall grade 6.5/10.

Beautiful, sad, funny, this is a great film. I'm so often disappointed by Icelandic films that I didn't bother to see this one until it was out on video....my mistake ! Ingvar Sigurðsson ( Páll ) is great, one of his best performances. Baltasar Kormákur and Björn Jörundur really surprised me too, not forgetting Hilmir Snær of course. And the music by Sigurrós is brilliant and completely in tune with the mood of the film. Forget all your prejudice against Scandinavian films, and/or Icelandic, I think we've finally grown up.