In a small village at the foot of a snowy mountain in the West-Fjords of Iceland, bald-headed seventeen year old Nói (Tómas Lemarquis) is a misfit. Preferring to sit alone in the cellar of the house where he lives with his dotty grandmother (Anna Fridriksdóttir) than to attend school, he seems headed for a life of petty crime, or at least low-paid work and alcoholism like his Elvis-obsessed father Kiddi (Þröstur Leó Gunnarsson). Yet when Íris (Elín Hansdóttir), daughter of the local bookshop owner, arrives from the city, she opens up new horizons for Nói, allowing him to dream of leaving his village for a better world. In order to escape, however, Nói must bury his past, and he soon finds himself overwhelmed by a tragic destiny.
From its opening sequence of Nói shovelling away at snow that has piled up against his front door to neck height, 'Nói Albinói' repeatedly portrays the village, with its rigid conservatism, stultifying boredom, its prisons, museums, graves and endless snow, as a place of entrapment in which those who fail to get out will end up losing themselves. Nói is not literally an albino, but the title reflects his outsider status as well as the colour of the snow and ice that threatens to engulf and entomb him forever. The film is dominated by snowy whiteouts outside and drab hues and faded 1970s décor inside, creating a palette of stifling claustrophobia, while the strikingly rare intrusion of primary colours always points to escape – whether it is the paradise retreat suggested by the image of the tropical beach in Nói's toy viewfinder, or the death foreshadowed by the vat of bright red animal blood which Nói accidentally spills over his grandmother and father. All this is accompanied by the sombre indie score (by writer/director Dagur Kári's own band, Slowblow), which sets just the right tone of sombre whimsy.
Although Kári claims to have modelled his Icelandic village in part on Springfield from 'The Simpsons', his delightfully eccentric debut, combining low-key characters, tragicomic surrealism, and a mood that spirals ever downward, has far more in common with the downbeat comedies of Finnish director Åki Kaurismäki than with anything coming from America – even if the ambiguous ending nods to the final, beach-set scene of the Coen brothers' 'Barton Fink'. Yet 'Nói Albinói' has its own quirky tale to tell, and Kári's mastery of gentle understatement and poetic melancholy suggests that he is a very promising new talent, with a maturity and assurance well beyond his twenty-seven years.