A seemingly off-putting pitch! Blackport, Icelandic series in eight episodes, broadcast this Thursday at 8:55 p.m. on Arte and available on Arte.tv, relates the privatization of fishing in Iceland in the mid-1980s. Created by theatrical company Vesturport, the social chronicle Blackport, Grand Prix Series Mania 2021, turns out to be a tasty and fierce black comedy on the excesses of capitalism, at the confluence of the influences of the unclassifiable Aki Kaurismäki and the Coen brothers. Why shouldn’t you miss this economic and ecological pamphlet which never veers into didactics?
This astonishing and earthy fresco begins with the establishment of fishing quotas in 1984 by the Icelandic government, to put an end to the unbridled fishing open to all, which threatened to deplete fish stocks.
The irresistible rise of the fishing barons
These regulations evolved contrary to the original spirit of the law, and paved the way for a wild liberalization of the sector. The sea and its resources found themselves concentrated in the hands of the most powerful entrepreneurs, veritable fishing barons.
“Fish and fishing grounds have been privatized, while our Constitution says it belongs to everyone! We wondered how it happened and why it happened? », explains Gísli Örn Garðarsson, co-creator of Blackportthat 20 minutes met at the Series Mania festival.
The latter also plays Jón, mayor of a small fishing port in the remote region of the West Fjords of the island, who is about to conclude the purchase of an old trawler with businessmen from especially from Reykjavík.
The stakes are high: this boat will allow the city, which revolves around a home of fish workers called “Blackport”, to obtain the precious fishing quota established by the State.
Alas, everything seems to be compromised, while Jón’s brother, a last-degree alcoholic who was to take command of the ship, is late for the signing of the transaction. Harpa, town clerk and Jón’s mistress, decides to take matters into her own hands.
The beginning of an irresistible ascent. “My character will participate in the purchase of this boat, then run the factory. Harpa is going to be the most powerful woman in town,” says actress and co-creator of the series, Nína Dögg Filippusdóttir.
A colorful portrait of 1980s Iceland
The lure of profit and compromises will come to complicate things and plunge the small fishing port and its inhabitants into the neoliberal frenzy of the Thatcher and Reagan years. “Very quickly, Jón will become Minister of Fisheries while owning shares in the factory. For his part, Harpa is initially an innocent person who just wants to take care of his own. Over the episodes, she convinces herself that she must control everything because she knows how to do it better than anyone. This is in a way what happened with the quota system”, analyzes Gísli Örn Garðarsson.
Through the destinies of this small community, Blackport paints a colourful, funny and warm portrait of Iceland in the 1980s. “A period that is dear to us, because we grew up there and a lot of things changed at that time”, says Gísli Örn Garðarsson. “It’s such an important part of our story that we had to tell it,” agrees Björn Hlynur Haraldsson, co-creator of the show and interpreter of Grimur, Harpa’s husband. A television UFO, which is both about the management of natural resources and makes you laugh a lot!