CITY, COUNTRYSIDE AND NATURE AS DISCURSIVE DEVICES USED TO STRENGTHEN THE NATIONAL IDENTITY IN ICELANDIC CINEMATOGRAPHY

Since its inception the Icelandic film industry has used the strategy of combining telluric elements with national- istic narratives. In many films one may also find visual structures that can be linked with the ‘tourist gaze’ – the term as we know it from the texts of John Urry. Despite a focus on some unique qualities of Icelandic nature and its cultural heritage (that can be attractive to foreign viewers) the specificity of cinematic production processes on the island belong to the structure of local, national cinema. Moreover, the 1980s, considered as the time of the rebirth of the Icelandic film industry and its rapid modernization, are full of films containing conservative or leftist telluric topics which are difficult for foreign audiences to understand. A new, transnational quality of Icelandic film features began with the film debut of Friðrik Þór Friðriksson in 1987. His fusion of modernist and postmodernist plots has encouraged other filmmakers to start the process of re-interpretation of the classic narrative structures, and to render the ironic demystification of some nationalistic themes.