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Arts:Blog

GFF Review: Grandma Lo-Fi

Lorna Irvine reviews the 'life-affirming, hugely touching film'.

Outsider Art is the sometimes controversial term for non-professional musicians who often use found sounds. This documentary film, directed by Icelandic filmmakers Ingibjorg Birgisdottir, Orri Jonsson and Kristin Bjork Kristjansdottir, focuses on one such outsider: Danish/Icelandic lo-fi artist Sigridur Nielsdottir. What makes Nielsdottir so fascinating is that she came late to making music, starting at the tender age of seventy when she was given a stereo as a present from her family and made not only over 59 CDs and some 600 songs, but sold-out art exhibitions of her collages.

The whole aesthetic of the film is that of a DIY indie mixtape, the kind you would make for a friend in the 80s. Much of the film is in Super 8, and Nielsdottir’s collages feature heavily, such as laughing skulls on brightly coloured rocks. Icelandic indie band Mum pop up to sing in her inimitable style.

Following the eccentric, sweet Nielsdottir around her kitchen-cum-recording studio, she employs whisks for helicopter sounds, scrunches foil for fire and clicks her tongue for horse effects. She also used a pigeon with a broken wing, cats, dogs and guinea pigs crying out. The music itself is not great, twee Bontempi-esque calypso that even John Shuttleworth would think twice about; distorted Eurovision songs or quirky lullabies with her thin voice and sound effects, but the affable personality of Nielsdottir cuts through such concerns.

Above all, the underlying message of Grandma Lo-Fi is that it is never too late to create, and her charisma and enthusiasm for life is beautiful. A life-affirming, hugely touching film.

Tags: cinema event

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