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A White, White Day

My second return to the cinema was to see A White, White Day, a blackly comic Icelandic drama directed by Hlynur Palmason. Once more, big thanks to the Luna in Leederville for the screening. Incidentally, I only recently found out that the old Cinema Paradiso in Northbridge (run by the Palace Cinema group) has closed for good. Sad news. I'm pretty sure Emmanuelle Beart doesn't remember locking eyes with me there as I struggled to wipe choc bomb remnants off my face, but I do. To be fair to her, she just about managed to hide her disgust with a polite smile. Anyway, it was a fine cinema and its loss just makes the Luna that much more essential.

Accursed ramblings! Onto the film. This is the second feature from Palmason and he appears to be at the forefront, along with Benedikt Erlingsson, of a mini-wave of Icelandic films*. (*This could be complete bollocks - I admit to a paucity of knowledge of Icelandic films). The film's name is explained in an opening title:

"When everything is white and you can no longer see the difference between the earth and the sky, the dead can talk to us who are still living."

This is followed by a car driving on a foggy mountain road, only to crash over the edge. Next comes some time lapse shots of a cruddy little house surrounded by small horses. So far, so odd, yet strangely compelling. Eventually, the film sets out its stall as a story about a grandfather, ex-cop Ingimundur, and his granddaughter, Salka. And his grief. You see, as we winkle out later, his wife was in the car at the start of the film and Ingimundur is having some trouble dealing with this loss. Palmason, who also wrote the film, must be given plaudits for not over-explaining things, allowing the audience to make assumptions, right or wrong. In fact, aside from a couple of uncomfortable appointments with a psychiatrist, there's precious little exposition in the whole film.

The relationship between Ingimundur and Salka is the focal point of the film and it's quite a touching one, due in no small part to the debut performance of Ida Mekkin Hlynsdottir. She's fantastic in this pivotal role. She's also the director's daughter (see the patronymic of Hlyn's dottir). The entire cast are fine, especially the comical turns by the town's police officers, but the weight of the film is carried expertly by Ingvar Sigurdsson. He's been around the block, both in this film and in his career, and it shows in his exasperated, barely-in-control performance. There's one scene where the phone is ringing, the dog is barking, Salka is watching some loud, bonkers shite kids' show on TV and Ingimundur quietly shuts himself outside. But the lack of histrionics is paid off later in the film.

As I was watching the plot unfold, I was reminded of the underrated Alexander Payne film, The Descendants, which shares some DNA with A White, White Day. I'll say no more on that. The style also reminded me of Michael Haneke's films. Lots of locked off shots, unconventional angles and scenes that linger but have every chance of being explosively interrupted. There's not a blue sky to be seen and Ingimundur's arc in the film could be viewed as akin to the rock he rolls down a hill, which ends up in the sea, sunk but at least resting.

Advance screenings of A White, White Day start at the Luna from July 2nd and it opens fully on July 9th.

See also:

The aforementioned The Descendants (2011) and, in memory of the great Ian Holm, The Sweet Hereafter (1997), directed by Atom Egoyan.

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