Iceland has everything that matters. There's Bjork, of course. There's Skyr yogurt, widely acknowledged to be the best on the planet. And they've got a place called The Icelandic Phallological Museum, the world's only museum dedicated to the penis, run by Sigurour Hjartarson. For more than 40 years this man has been amassing a formidable collection of mammalian male organs, but there's just one empty spot on his shelf: a human specimen. Hjartarson's work remains incomplete without a generous donor, and it's practically heart-rending to witness his dilemma.
How I know about all this is through a fascinating 2012 documentary, directed by Jonah Bekhor and Zach Math, called "The Final Member," which will soon be released in Japan. Don't ask why this masterpiece took three long years to reach the archipelago.
Japanese can be pretty strange about the phallus. There's a Kawasaki shrine famed for venerating a huge carved penis, and a number of regional museums depictions of genitalia of all shapes and sizes.
But movies are a different story, even a movie as sincere and serious as this one. In the film, two men step up to help Hjartarson: a 95-year-old Icelander who used to be a playboy and an American named Tom who's so proud of his thing he named it "Elmo" and had it tattooed. In "The Final Member," Tom insists that it's his specimen that belongs in a museum — and not anyone else's.
Oh, and by the way, size does matter.
"The Final Member" opens on Aug. 8. For more information, visit saigo-no-ippon.gaga.ne.jp.