No Such Thing

Hal Hartley's strange tale opens with a monster giving a soliloquy in the vein of the sad reflection that Count Dracula makes on his condition, while Jonathan Harker listens, in Werner Herzog's "Nosferatu". The story alternates between modern settings of a television network and the home in Iceland of a legendary monster that -as in "King Kong"- will become a victim of the manipulative methods of the communication media (with Helen Mirren in charge.) The scenes dealing with the reserved journalist (Sarah Polley in an outstanding underacted performance) surviving a plane crash, meeting a community of weirdoes in Iceland and finally facing the monster, are the most attractive; the following is rather clichéd, though this endearing monster (who looks like a rock star) keeps making until the end, insightful comments on human beings, when we were still creeping "to reach the shore", and our destructive ways. 8/10.