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Reviews
The Island at the Top of the World (1974)
Short of Verne but worth a look
Island at the Top of the World
At the dawn of the twentieth century, a father employs a French aviator to take him deep into the Artic, where his son has disappeared in his quest for the whales' graveyard the mythical place where whales go to die. To the native peoples, the place he seeks, shrouded in perpetual clouds, is guarded by evil spirits. But the father, accompanied by a professor of Nordic studies and a reluctant Artic guide, presses on to the island at the top of the world. There, they will discover a lost Viking colony, separated from the rest of civilization for almost a thousand years.
The premise rivals the best of Jules Verne's fantastic voyage tales. The studio touted this comparison in its trailers. It's no 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, however. The perfect blend of actors, script and special effects wonders that marks that classic production eluded Island's makers. It's a good film don't miss it if the chance ever comes to see it on the big screen but don't let the story get your expectations up too high.
Three weak links keep Island at the Top of the World out of film lovers' lists of all-time greats: weak acting, a sharp contrast between real settings and soundstage footage, and a script that fails to mine the story gold this adventure promises. David Hartman looks the part of the University of Minnesota Nordic studies professor he's tall, blond and blue eyed. His pleasant, distinctive voice also recommends the character. But his acting skills are limited, a fact that his being a professor and not a more cavalier and dynamic figure does not mitigate. Compared to co-star, Donald Sinden, a Shakespearian actor, Hartman seems flat too casual and unimpassioned to sustain this story's epic undertones.
The inconsistent cinematography likewise disappoints. Some shots are superb the airship emerging from a rural French barn; the real animals running below the ship (POV fliers); the airship tossed in a clouded, stormy sky over the island and cast into icy cliffs; the killer whales attacking our heroes as they sail on a chunk of ice but other scenes all but announce they're shot on a soundstage. Particularly stark are shots inside the ancient temple, whose apparent light source is several large flaming vessels on an immense stage: all of the characters are heavily lighted from overhead, creating a halo that could only come from the many lights suspended from a studio ceiling.
Yet the biggest weakness is the film script. Instead of portraying these lost Vikings as a complex people with something to teach their modern "invaders," the script casts the Vikings into two uninspiring camps: benevolent simpleton, and raging warlord. The son's girlfriend's father is particularly underdeveloped, managing smiles and a sad face as encounters require, but showing us none of the ruggedness, wisdom or resourcefulness one might expect from a man wresting a comfortable life from a volcanic, ice-capped island untouched by modern science. The island chief is the opposite extreme, a glaring-eyed tyrant bent on killing the visitors without trial, without any effort to learn anything about their purposes or potential value to his people.
Part of the problem is the language barrier. The script has sown devices to deal with this into the story: the son has been here for two years and has taught some of the people English. The professor, with his command of ancient Nordic writing, is able to speak to them in their tongue. But we are still left with verbal translations by the son or the professor throughout the story. The Norse characters must speak briefly because we also need to hear the English-speaking characters' translation. It would have been much better either to have more of the Norse characters know English, or to provide subtitles so they could develop more complex thoughts. In a story like 20,000 Leagues, Captain Nemo, the nemesis, is an intelligent, wounded soul with profound observations of the world that condemned him, through its cruelty, to his undersea isolation. No Norseman in Island has a fraction of Nemo's depth. Weak nemeses make for less-than-compelling drama.
Island at the Top of the World is not a bad film. Parts of it including the research the studio did to confirm that a group of Erik the Red's ships could have been separated from an expedition and ended up at a volcanic island, like Iceland, at the top of the world are impressive. Some footage is "ahh"-worthy, and on par with the best shots from the family adventure genre. The costumes, portrayals of the buildings, ships, landscape on the island, have a compelling, realistic quality. But the whole is no better than the sum of its parts. At age 9, I loved Island at the Top of the World enough to hunt it down on NetFlix more than 30 years later. Perhaps that is its best role: a film to awe children, and which parents can watch with them knowing that but for a few scary encounters, it will leave behind nothing but a hunger for more and sometimes better adventure stories.
Detective Fiction (2003)
Strong acting and direction keep this character study engaging.
Expectations are everything when watching a film and this well-acted character study suffers some from a title that makes fans of typical detective stories, and Pulp Fiction, expect something with more action. But give it a chance. Mo Collins, one of the great comic television actors, is capable of far more than big vapid eyes and respiratory tics in a Mad-TV sketch. And Patrick Coyle, the writer and director, shines equally as male lead, Jack, with a look somewhere between Robert Culp and William H. Macy and a distinctive voice perfectly paired to the noir style with its voice-over segments.
Over time the film's strong writing and acting overcome one's early disappointment that this isn't going to be a typical thriller, but a relationship story painted in noir tones. Once one lets go of expectations and follows the story Coyle has to tell, there is ample entertainment, empathy and fuel for thought to be derived from this tale of a couple's fight to overcome the loneliness togetherness has come to mean for them. It's well directed too, with clever shots and subtle juxtapositions that relieve tensions the dialogue creates and make the watching interesting, even though it's basically a filmed play.
Especially fun for Twin Cities residents are the many familiar streets and buildings, from the old Koscielski's gun shop, with its big smiley face and bullet entry sign, to the classic Parkway Theater and seedy parts of the warehouse district, which have been edited together to suggest a whole city block of adult entertainment (none of whose activities appear on screen).
People who enjoy good acting and films about relationships will appreciate Detective Fiction. It's a well wrought film, better than the average video store offering. Collins and Coyle are real talents and movie fans would benefit from more film work by both.