Tears of Stone

I was not at all familiar with Leifs before watching this movie. Knowing it was based on his life I expected it to be a fairly typical biopic, following him from his childhood, through his difficult life, ending up with him as an old man. While it does adhere to many traits common in biopics, I enjoyed that it only focused on one part of his life, instead trying to make that slice represent him as a person. From the character you see, you can guess how he ended up in the situation he was in, and though you only see him living in the difficult time of the second world war, you get a picture of what kind of person he was - both his good sides and his bad.

The most impressive part of the movie was how much they achieved with what I assume was a quite limited budget. Despite having most scenes being set in cities like Reykjavik and Berlin, there are hardly any shots of the cities themselves. Instead of letting this be an open wound, they opted for a more creative approach, using the darkness of night time and interesting cinematography to hide the fact. While not always successful, it makes the movie much more interesting.

My biggest gripe with the movie might be due to the print of it I saw - but the image quality seemed to be quite bad, and with a yellow tint that I hope was not intentional.

This was an important and a brave step forward, towards an overdue reappraisal of the life and work of the much neglected Icelandic composer Jón Leifs. Done at a time when recordings of his music were scarce, since the release of Tears Of Stone a considerable discography has been achieved and more public performances of his most ambitious pieces given. Long may they continue.

This film is quite hard to track down, but worth the effort, despite being a bit rough round the edges (much like the composer). Attention is focused on the existence of the Leifs family in Germany as Nazism takes hold and the future of Leifs' Jewish in-laws threatened. Jón is a gifted conductor but dreams of success as a composer; Annie, his German-Jewish wife, is a renowned concert pianist with no desire to give up her career. The family eventually find themselves cornered by the racial intolerance of the new regime. Jón, forced into an impossible position, has to choose the lesser of two evils. But which is which? I think, after watching the film and its documentary on DVD, that the team behind this biopic were in two minds about what they wanted to do. First a documentary, then a TV series, then what is an episodic fictionalised biopic that focuses strictly on Leifs' family more than on his musical progression or his national pride. If you approach this film as if it were one of those Ken Russell composer profiles, minus any kind of narrator or real life witnesses, then it will make more sense.

The cinematography is strikingly impressive. Various scenes were filmed, as it were, around the music which forms the soundtrack; Leifs' music is, for the most part, well chosen for each scene, but not always subtly. The actors do well but the script is sometimes too ordinary, too prosaic. Too bald. It is a film about love but also frustration: artistic, social, personal. As such, it's not exactly a cheerful experience, but it does provide a fresh slant on a well documented era and if not exactly the height of sophistication, Tears Of Stone is, like its protagonist, a rough diamond, but a diamond all the same.

None too slick and all the better for it. Definitely a film I'll be coming back to.

In recent years, Icelandic cinema has started to gain world recognition. Spearheaded by the export of the films of Iceland's premier movie maker, 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.