The Ice ☆☆☆

Starring: Marion Cotillard
and Clara Pacini

Directed by: Lucile
Hadzihalilovic

aving debuted at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution, The Ice Tower centres around a 15-year-old runaway who finds herself on the set for an adaptation of her favorite fairy tale, Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen. There, Jeanne (Clara Pacini) becomes infatuated with the film’s star, a mysterious and cold diva called Cristina Van Den Berg (Marion Cotillard). Under the guise of 20-year-old Bianca Ligorio, Jeanne allows herself to be drawn into Cristina’s orbit, unaware that the actress’s intentions might not be as pure as she would like. In scenes that bring back memories of Sonia Braga in Hector Babenco’s Kiss of the Spider Woman, we see Jeanne’s desire to be with Cristina mixed with her desire to become her. But our protagonist also wants something else: orphaned as a child, she also sees Cristina as a mother figure.

This three-way relationship between Jeanne and Cristina is reflected by the three-layered approach taken by the film when it comes to how it depicts its universe. It is often quite hard to tell the difference between Jeanne’s imagination, the movie that is being shot within the movie, and the reality of the world in which the characters live. Scenes where Jeanne dreams of meeting the real Snow Queen as she gazes onto the snowy set or into the special effects models dissolve into the shooting that is then wrapped up when Dino (Gaspar Noé), the director, yells cut. As our brains struggle to make sense of when the fantasy starts and when it ends, one thing remains certain: Jeanne’s fascination with Cristina, which ultimately cuts her off from others around her.

As Jeanne becomes more and more taken with Cristina, The Ice Tower becomes tenser and tenser. Initially almost imperceptible, the overbearing soundtrack makes sure that we won’t forget just how delicate Jeanne’s situation is. And the cinematography by Jonathan Ricquebourg lends an even more intense atmosphere to Jeanne’s point of view. Every single shot of The Ice Tower looks like a painting, or, rather, like an illustration from a very modern fairy tale book. Combining grainy images with a soft focus, Ricquebourg not only makes the movie seem like a product of the time in which it takes place, the late 60s, but also makes everything feel like a dream. The dream, however, is of that kind that seems to be always on the brink of becoming a nightmare.

“Initially almost imperceptible, the overbearing soundtrack makes sure that we won’t forget just how delicate Jeanne’s situation is. And the cinematography by Jonathan Ricquebourg lends an even more intense atmosphere to Jeanne’s point of view. ”

In that sense, the slow pacing works wonders to make The Ice Tower even more unnerving. Hadzihalilovic takes her time quite like our dreams and daydreams do, dragging us from one moment of wonder to another of pure horror. Not that The Ice Tower should be seen as a horror movie, mind you. There is nothing scary about it, at least, not in a traditional sense. The Ice Tower is, instead, a thriller.

Ultimately, while some viewers might still be put off by the story’s pacing, it is hard to feel bored with so much conspiring to make Jeanne and Cristina’s relationship as disturbing and suspicious as a relationship between mother and daughter or between would-be lovers can be. Rest assured, though, that The Ice Tower is not a movie that romanticises a relationship between a teenager and a grown woman. Much like Andersen’s fairy tale, The Ice Tower is the story of a child lured in by an ever-demanding queen, and such stories can never end well.

Alas, when we say that The Ice Tower does not end well, we mean that in more than one way. Without spoiling the end of the movie, suffice it to say that it feels unearned, rushed, and poorly thought-out. There is still a mixture of magic and realism to it, as one would expect from such a film, and Hadzihalilovic leaves a lot to our interpretation. However, no matter how you look at the final moments of The Ice Tower, there is the feeling that something has been lost. It’s almost as if the writers and the director did not know how to wrap up the movie, so they decided to go with the easiest way out.

Thankfully, this is not enough to drown down the sense of wonder and despair that permeates The Ice Tower. While we must insist that this movie is not for everyone, given how slowly the story moves, it remains a masterpiece from start to well, almost to finish. If you’ve already tested yourself with other beautiful, albeit lengthy, works of art, don’t miss the opportunity of witnessing Hadzihalilovic’s imperfect masterpiece. Allow yourself to be mesmerized by its beauty and consumed by the paranoia that surrounds it, much like Jeanne in the realm of the Snow Queen.

– Courtesy: Collider.com

Rating system: *Not on your life * ½ If you really must waste your time ** Hardly worth the bother ** ½ Okay for a slow afternoon only *** Good enough for a look see *** ½ Recommended viewing **** Don’t miss it **** ½ Almost perfect ***** Perfection