Nói Albínói (Dagur Kári, 2003)

Nói, a 17-year-old hairless albino, has issues with authority in a remote Icelandic town in the shadow of a mountain and immerses himself in fantasies of faraway lands until the arrival of a girl closer to home, in a cafe where he systematically loots the fruit machine on a daily basis.
Kári's best-known film to date really exploits the alien feel of the snowbound landscape, populating it with skewed but good-hearted eccentrics, all accentuating the dissociation felt by its protagonist, whose Martian appearance is complemented by his sardonic intelligence. But at heart he's still a teenager with a teenager's impulses, frustrated at having no clear target to rebel against, lashing out in various aimlessly pathetic ways.
The lifelessly impassive environment, a prison without walls, is used to hold a mirror to his impotence, and so the film's universal theme, albeit a well-worn one, i.e. the oppressive nature of small-town life and the insignificance of the individual, is conveyed effectively to any audience beyond its mere geographical specifics. But because it's also done with a lively wit and a genuine fascination with the minutiae of its characters' doings, that sense of oppression never becomes overwhelming to the observer.

7/10