This year, Icelandic director Hlynur Pàlmason offers us A Day So White, a "thriller" in which we find a cynical husband convinced of having been cheated by his late wife. Seized by such a powerful jealousy, the character is pushed to improvise detective, but on the verge of confusing the desire for murder and mourning.
An Icelandic poetic thriller
Un jour si blanc, under construction since 2013, tells the story of Ingimundur, a police officer who loses his wife in a road accident. But during this dark period called "grief," nothing seems to work for him to recover from the shock. That's because something made him suspect that his wife had a double life. Throughout the film, Ingimundur can't help but want to establish the truth, even if his research may put him in danger. From beginning to end, the film exudes a suffocating atmosphere, which leads us to the character's inability to reveal his wife's infidelity. The title of the film quotes an Icelandic proverb: "When the white sky and the snowy earth merge, the barrier that separates the space of the dead from the space of life is immediately removed." Like the protagonist, torn between a child and the ghost of an almost certain adultery, the film is torn between several moods: Scandinavian melancholy accompanied by a rather mocking humor. And this is how his violence seems constantly softened, even absorbed by his little girl. Similarly, its form is extremely controlled, and sometimes offers a chilling setting, exuding both a sense of nature and joy, like the scene where ponies unexpectedly enter the house of Ingimundur, the main character.
Tailor-made roles
The actor, Ingvar Sigurðsson, has always felt something strong about this role, he won the Louis Roederer Prize for his revelation at the Cannes Film Festival in 2019. And it was in an interview at the Angevin festival Premiers Plans, that the Icelandic director said that the role was written especially for Ingvar, he saw no one else. Another tailor-made role is that of the little girl. Indeed, the director has chosen his own daughter as an actress: a promising young girl who already reveals a real performance. This duo offers so much humanity to this film, which continues to show surreal detours. But in this small lost town in Iceland where the raw and aggressive atmosphere seems to reign, nothing prevents tenderness from being born, and it is precisely thanks to the relationship between the hero and his little girl. In addition to effective acting, the near omnipresence of silence is very powerful in the composition of the film. This tool shows here the aggressiveness and anger of the main character as well as the constant unspoken of a family environment. We can also translate these many whites into deep resilience, but without really knowing what awaits us. How far are we willing to go to discover the truth? And are all truths good to know?
A Day So White: thriller or not thriller?
For fans of horror thrillers, the film can be disappointing: the scenario seems to offer a slideshow of beautiful silent images. Nevertheless, the director uses the same capacity as a thriller to expand his story, and precisely, offers an atmosphere as calm and soothing as severe and icy. The spectator thus plunges during 1h50 into such a strong and fascinating painting, which emphasizes both the isolation of the village and the austere aspect of Iceland. If it is not an action film, it is truly an introspection, evoking mainly questions of mourning and identity, where there are only two solutions: murder one's enemies or cry, to be able to love and forgive again. And the actor Ingvar Sigurðsson does it brilliantly, his incredible presence allows him to bring courage and accuracy to his character, in addition to this little girl who undoubtedly remains the true source of this poetic walk. And if you want to see another visual poetry, we highly recommend Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, to watch on Netflix now.
