Á Köldum klaka
Iceland / USA
, 85 min
Shown in 1996
CREDITS
- dir
-
Fridrik Thor Fridriksson
- prod
-
Jim Stark, George Gund III
- scr
-
Jim Stark, Fridrik Thor Fridriksson
- cam
-
Fridrik Thor Fridriksson
- editor
-
Steingrimur Karlsson
- cast
-
Masatoshi Nagase, Lili Taylor, Fisher Stevens, Gisli Halldorsson, Seijun Suzuki
-
COMMENTS
Fridrik Thor Fridriksson in person.
Atsushi Hirata eagerly anticipates a sunny week of paid vacation in Hawaii as a break from his work at a Tokyo fish company. Instead however, his grandfather (played by cult director Seijun Suzuki) convinces him to fulfill an important family duty: Atsushi must put the spirits of his deceased parents to rest by performing a ritual at the exact site of their death. Unfortunately, his parents—geologists by trade—died in a remote part of Iceland. Atsushi, played to comic perfection by Japanese film and music star Nagase Masatoshi (Mystery Train, The Most Terrible Time of My Life), boards a plane to Iceland and begins a spiritual road trip to “a place that cannot be found on any map.” Shooting on location in the cold, majestic landscape of Iceland, director Fridrik Thor Fridriksson and cowriter/producer Jim Stark create a world that is humorous, seductive and mystical. And while the scenery is unfamiliar and intimidating, the faces Atusushi encounters are oddly familiar. A woman “collects” funerals via snapshots and sound recordings. A pair of tourists (Lili Taylor and Fisher Stevens in a San Jose Sharks jacket) moonlight as hijackers (or possibly vice-versa). And an ice fairy literally resurrects Atsushi’s frozen-over car with a magic shriek. As Atsushi gets closer to the site of his parents’ death, Cold Fever becomes a highly personal exploration of the universal human need to seek out our personal and familial heritage—an instinct so strong it joins the most diverse of cultures.
—Lisanne Skyler
FACTOID #75
Italian screen siren and ’60s sex symbol Sophia Loren appeared in two films screened at the San Francisco International Film Festival: Ettore Scola’s A Special Day in 1977 and Francesco Rosi’s More Than a Miracle in 1981.
