Between truth and stereotype, tradition and modernity: national and transnational motives in Icelandic documentaries of the last decade

Abstract

This text focuses on the ideological discourses that are present in the images of the “unique and pure society” in Icelandic documentary films. The modernist and postmodernist figures that appear in many Icelandic texts of culture tend to be an intriguing mixture of tradition and modernity. Nowadays, non-fiction films from Iceland often focus on themes related to the specific perception of dynamic changes in Nordic national identity. Many documentaries may be also treated as the visual equivalents of cultural and tourist guides that are supposed to present the bright and dark sides of life in Iceland. All these strategies and rhetorical figures are creatively reinterpreted in contemporary Icelandic documentary.