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REVIEWS | DIRECTOR'S BIO |
| PROGRAM 3 |
TEARS OF STONE
Drama / 114 min / 1996
Director: Hilmar Oddsson 
Based on a true story set in turbulent
1930s Germany, Icelandic composer Jon Leifs marries a beautiful Jewish girl with a
promising musical future of her own. After a concert in Potsdam to which his wife is not
admitted, he manages to get exit visas for her and their two children. As they depart, he
is forced to reveal the fate of their grandparents, and the fact that he too must leave.
Handsomely shot and accompanied by a powerful musical score of the composer's work, TEARS
OF STONE won numerous Festival awards, including the Nordic Prize at the Gothenburg Film
Festival and the Best Cinematography Award at the Prague Film Festival. |
AWARDS
Gothenberg Film Festival, 1996
Nordic Public Jury Prize
Prague International Film Festival:
1996 Best Cinematography
Montpellier International Jewish Film Festival: Grand Prix Best Film
CREDITS
Script Writers: Hilmar Oddsson, Hjalmar H. Ragnarsson and Sveinbjorn I. Baldvinsson
Composer: Jon Leifs
Music Director: Hjalmar H. Ragnarsson
Director of Photography:
Sigurdur Sverrir Paisson
Exterior Photography in Iceland:
Slawomir Isziak
Set Designers: Sigurjon Johannsson, Andreas Olshausen
Film Editor: Kerstin Eriksdotter
CAST
Throstur Leo Gunnarsson: Jon Leifs
Ruth Olafsdottir: Annie Riethof Leifs
Heinz Bennent: Mr. Riethof
Bergihora Aradottir: Lil
Ingrid Andree: Mrs. Riethof
Ulrich Tukur: Ernst Zuchner
Johann Sigurdason: Pall Isolfsson
Thomas Brasch: Mr. Hoffmann
Benedikt Erlingsson: Mr. Krotschl
Ratio 1.66:1
In Icelandic and German
with English subtitles |
REVIEWS
In recent years, Icelandic cinema has started to gain world recognition. Spearheaded by
the export of the films of Iceland's premier moviemaker, Fridrik Thor Fridriksson
("Cold Fever"), this fledgling film industry is developing an international
reputation. "Tears of Stone", from director Hilmar Oddsson, tells the story of
Jon Leifs, Iceland's most celebrated composer, and was filmed in both Iceland and Germany.
Jon Leifs (Throstur Leo Gunnarsson) made his reputation as a conductor and composer of
"modern music" during the 1930s in Germany, where his wife, Annie (Ruth
Olafsdottir), was a celebrated pianist. The couple had two daughters, a quiet adolescent
named Snot, and a lively six-year old, Lif. As depicted in this biopic, Jon is completely
devoted to his youngest child, taking her for long walks, buying her violins, and
promising that he will never leave her -- a promise he is eventually forced to break.
The early portion of Tears of Stone focuses on the struggle between the pragmatist and the
artist within Jon. His passion is to compose, and he finds himself bursting with music,
but conducting is what pays the bills. As long as his wife is working, however, Jon can
stay cloistered in a small, dimly lit room, scrawling notes on paper. But, as the Nazis
gain power, Annie, a Jew, finds work increasingly difficult to come by. To avoid
compromising his integrity and reputation, Jon returns to Iceland, leaving his family
behind. When he comes back to Berlin to protect them against the rising anti-Semitic tide,
he is faced with a monstrous choice between collaborating with the Nazis or risking the
three people that he loves.
Like almost every well-constructed Holocaust drama, "Tears of Stone" is
ultimately about sacrifice and loss. No one, not the Jewish Anna or the Aryan Jon, escapes
from Hitler's reign unscathed. Jon does what he has to do to save his family, but,
ironically, loses them because of his actions. And, while this film lacks the
gut-wrenching emotional impact of a "Schindler's List" ("Tears of
Stone" is more melodramatic than hard-hitting), it forces us once again to confront
the blackest era of modern history and the many individual tragedies that comprised the
whole.
Some of the most poignant moments of "Tears of Stone" involve Jon's interaction
with Lif. Young and naive, she cannot grasp why she, as the child of a Jew, is considered
a foreigner in her own country. She doesn't understand the hatred and prejudice that will
sever her from her home and eventually part her from her father.
One of the great strengths of "Tears of Stone" is the fine Icelandic exterior
cinematography by longtime Kieslowski collaborator Slawomir Idziak. His amber-filtered
shots of the sea are majestic -- the waves look like yellow glass or polished gold,
undulating and alive as they crash upon an ice-littered beach. No other images in this
visually satisfying movie are quite as vivid. There are times when such photographic
excellence compensates for the lead actors' uneven performances.
The title "Tears of Stone" refers to a child's story that Jon tells Lif. A lost
troll, searching for home, is unable to reach his cave before dawn. When the sun's first
rays touch the troll, he is turned to stone, as is the single tear that he sheds. Jon
carries a polished stone in his pocket that he says is the troll's tear. According to him,
"whoever carries this stone will always be able to find his way home." It's
ironic that, for most of this film, Jon and his family look for, but don't find, a place
they can call home.
--James Berardinelli, 1996
An Icelandic Composer in Berlin
Part of the legacy of Nazism is the problem of dealing with such ambiguous cases as Martin
Heidegger and Richard Strauss, men who at least belonged to Nazi sponsored organizations.
What measure of guilt, if any, is justifiably attributed to such figures? That is the
problem at the center of the fine movie Tears of Stone, an Icelandic film, directed by
Hilmar Oddsson. It is about a composer, Jon Leifs, living in Berlin, whose wife was
Jewish. He is portrayed as having compromised himself, at least in the eyes of his wife,
in order to get his family out of wartime Germany. The film is punctuated by scenes of
surging waves, always looking different, always beautiful, associated with the unfamiliar
music of the composer, also beautiful, but not completely unfamiliar if one has heard
Satie, Wagner, Strauss, and Mahler. The film leaves several questions unexplored. For
instance, what was Leifs' relationship to other composers, how do the people of Iceland
regard his music today, what other elements besides collaborating with the Nazis may have
contributed to the personal tragedy? Nevertheless, highly recommended.
-- Roger Schmeekle, FILM.COM
DIRECTOR'S BIO
Hilmar Oddsson [b. 1957] comes from a theatrical family in Reykjavik and
was the founder of the Classically trained pop group Melchior. In 1980 he began studying
film direction at the Munchen Hochschule fur Fernsehen und Film where he graduated in
1985. His most interesting short film from Munich was In The Shadow of Scartaris on the
mysteries of Snaefellsjokull glacier where Jules Verne had set his classic journey to the
Centre of the Earth. After he returned from Munich, Hilmar Oddsson's first full-length
film, "The Beast" (1986), was released. This psychological thriller dealing with
the fate of the two young people in a remote and bleak landscape was well received by the
public and critics. Hilmar Oddsson wrote the screenplay and composed some of the musical
score as well.
Between major projects, Hilmar Oddsson has worked as a freelance producer and director for
Icelandic TV and as a newspaper critic. He was a co-founder of Nyja bio Film and Video
Production Company in 1989.
The critically acclaimed "Tears of Stone" (1995), which is based on the life of
the Icelandic composer Jon Leifs, has participated in more than 30 festivals and won
various prizes.
Feature Films:
1986 The Beast
1995 Tears of Stone
1998 No Trace |
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