One review on 20 Nov 2021
Iceland 2016
Running time: 109 mins
A White, White Day
Director : Hlynur Pálmason
Aspect Ratio: 2.35 Widescreen
Colour: Colour
Sound: Dolby digital
Tech Notes: Dolby digital
Synopsis
Set in small town Iceland it starts with the car crash in which local police chief Ingimundur (Ingvar Sigurdsson) wife dies.
Suppressing his grief while on sick leave he busies himself renovating an isolated house for his daughter's family and helping look after his granddaughter. The therapy offered by a psychiatrist is not helping.
A chance find of a video camera in a box of his wide's confirms his suspicions that his wife was having an affair, probably with a fellow officer.
Trapping two colleagues in the station he 'borrows' the police car and picks up the man he suspects and confronts him, forcing him to confess in an open grave.
Next day the man pursues him and attacks him with a knife while he is taking his granddaughter to school, cutting his arm. They escape through a closed road tunnel.
Finally he accepts his grief
Reviews
by rogerco on Sat 20th Nov 2021 DVD proj @ home (Subtitled)
Good example of Arty Slow
Full review
The filmaking is excellent, Ingvar Sigurdsson's performance as the brooding Ingimundur carries the film along and the granddaughter (Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir) is also very good.
At times the arty-slow pace becomes almost tedious, but never quite tips over into self-parody. There are a few oddities in the story-line which slightly mar the overall effect - but mostly these only become apparent when thinking about it afterwards as the film manages to gloss over them with its own logic.
Very reminiscent in style and pace of both The County (another Icelandic film) and Leviathan (Zvyagintsev's film set in Northern Russia) - if you enjoyed either of those you'll probably like this (and vice versa).