Investigation Into the Invisible World (2002)

Thanks for the memories!

Fresh and Exciting

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

I just saw this movie at Scandinavia House in New York, and I enjoyed it very much. His movie is filmed in Iceland, one of the most beautiful natural volcanic landscapes in the world. It is a documentary, but a documentary that uses many Psychedelic effects to enhance the experience. It stars many normal everyday Icelanders, who are the descended from the Vikings who settled this island in the 10th century. These settlers brought their belief in Norse Mythology (Elfs, Trolls, HiddenFolk) with them from Scandinavia. Even today, the folk beliefs in elfs, trolls, "hidden folk", and sea monsters persists in Iceland, which is one of the most advanced countries in the world. I also liked how the director/writer Jean-Michel Roux took questions from the audience after the screening. I am going to get several copies of this movie on DVD for my friends.

I happened upon this film being played on IFC, and was pleasantly surprised. I concur with another reviewer's compliment on how the filmmaker allows the subjects to explain themselves and their beliefs without making judgment. In the end, the documentary does not seem to take a position either way, rather it simply documents Icelanders who believe in the "invisible world" and it's invisible beings.The people interviewed in the film seem entirely of sound mind and body, and, in any case, seem to believe what they are saying.What I found most compelling about the film is the way director Jean-Michel Roux and his crew crafted the film. The combination of images of Iceland, the ambient score, and the composition and style of cinematography give the film an almost narrative feel. The subjects seem entirely believable, which when combined with the style, makes this film so intriguing.

This film is probably one of the most captivating documentaries about a side of Iceland that everyone wants to understand better... It's showing this week on the Sundance Channel. Make sure you record it during one of the showings listed below. Watch it more than once. If the Supernatural is not your favorite subject matter, stick with the movie through the very end and you may change your mind. The version I watched twice in 2004 was 90 minutes long, so I am interested to see if I miss the 5 minutes they cut.The filmmaker Jean Michel Roux made several trips to Iceland for this project to record the stories told by everyone he wanted to put in the movie. Then he had the footage in Icelandic written in French and then he returned to conduct interviews based on the stories the people told only having to translate the final interviews again into French for him to edit the film. He got the idea to do this film when he was doing location scouting for a fictional Sci-Fi film he was developing.The soundtrack is equally moving featuring Hector Zazou, The Residents, Biosphere and Gorecki. This movie was so popular at the San Francisco Film Festival last year that they had to add two more screenings, totaling 4 screenings. If you want to know what the atmosphere is truly like, you have to visit Iceland, but if you just want to get about 85 minutes inside the remote country and meet its most fascinating residents, then you really must see this movie. Tell as many people you know who are even just remotely curious about Iceland or about the Supernatural.

Enquête sur le Monde Invisible is a documentary film made in Iceland. Living in a primitive nature, always in formation, this modern nation maintains a secret relationship with a community of invisible beings : the elves.Many Icelanders also affirm to have seen ghosts. Others observe aquatic monsters or communicate with angels and the extraterrestrial. Resting on disconcerting confessions, this investigation confronts us with a fundamental question : are we alone in the universe? Jean-Michel Roux(French director, author of the sympathetic Thousand Wonders of the Universe), offers us here a single and completely atypical work in its intentions as in its result. The film is located in a seldom explored fringe of the cinema, the sometimes thin border which separates pure objective documentary from fiction film . Thus, testimonies of all the Icelanders are entirely authentic but J.M. Roux has the intelligence not to show them in a rough way and hoping that they will disturb the public, but on the contrary exploits the form by using cinematographic techniques in order to present these testimonies under a strange view which is based on the usual representations of the mysterious on the large like the small screen (luminous halo etc).In the same way, it makes sure that the testimonies appear sometimes absurd and full of references to the cinema (very fond of fantastic and paranormal), but their content is perfectly disconcerting by their logic and the natural tone of the questioned people. It also admirably managed to combine the grainy and unusual image of super 16 scope, and the magnificence and the strangeness of the Icelandic landscapes in order to spare contemplative breaks after each major testimony so that the spectator can reflect and be disturbed by what it has just heard.The atmospheric music is also for a lot in the so particular environment of the film, withing the just limit of the New Age cliché, but perfectly in agreement with the lunar quality of the images, in order to place the spectator in a state necessary to a greater receptivity. Here is a work which should be seen by all the amateurs of fantastic as it makes it possible to reflect on the topics which constitute their films of predilection, in a different and disconcerting way, by replacing them in reality and especially without them having as only justification dramatic stakes. The film is thus built on the opposition between the veracity of testimonies and the artificial aspect of the cinematographic techniques, which allows J.M. Roux to give to his film an aspect often disturbing so much the questions raised by these testimonies are unsettling.The end of the film is for this reason of a rare ambition, not in its form (then again ...) but in the questions which it asks and especially the vertiginous and finally very positive prospects that it offers. "The existence of elves, ghosts, extraterrestrial beings, a life after death, was never proved. It is similar with God : nobody has proved if he exists or not." Quote from Mrs Vigdis Finnbogadottir, President of the Republic of Iceland of 1980 to 1996.