Mannvirki

The title of Gústav Geir Bollason’s first essay in feature-length filmmaking is bewitchingly matter of fact: Mannvirki means structure or building – it’s composed of two parts, where the first means person, and the second fortress. And this is exactly what Mannvirki is about. It shows people in a once-sturdy, now derelict building that could have been anything from a scientific research station to some army structure. Refusing to fit any genre, box or niche, Mannvirki can be enjoyed in many ways. One would be as a fine piece of architectural cinema, an investigation into the particularities of this once eerily seductive space; another as an installation for cinema, a study in entropy and the broken beauty of decay that the film cherishes and celebrates; yet another as a story told extremely elliptically, featuring a group of people who find themselves in this forgotten house and try to make sense of its story from studying the remains – an act slowly turning into a series of chores and rituals. Mannvirki is, above all, open to observations and reveries – it is a poem and paean to the joys of experiencing life in subjunctive moods. (International Film Festival Rotterdam)