A White, White Day

The film fairly ravishes the senses, with its sense of weather as destiny. All of the performances are solid. Sigurdsson and Hlynsdottir, as grandfather and granddaughter, are like granite: the film succeeds because of their bond.

What now for a director this eye-poppingly talented? It would be unwise to miss the answer.

The momentum really builds in the third act, but the film's quieter moments of contemplation are its most striking.

There are quirky directorial touches throughout, but Palmason never once loses sight of the central dilemma and builds to a terrifying roadside confrontation between cop and would-be killer.

The mayhem unfolds in some remarkable unbroken takes, yet Pálmason and Sigurdsson never lose sight of the healing that's taking place behind the glowering looks and gun-toting aggression.

This bizarre and sometimes scary film from Iceland has a way of keeping you off balance and on the edge of your seat.

It is outlined as a down-to-earth drama that achieves moments of psychological scope with its austere and frigid atmospheres, but whose core is almost always run over by the lack of narrative impulse that puts me in iceberg mode. [Full review in Spanish]

A White, White Day is an Icelandic noir that, at times, has great power in the moments where a single, chilling nonverbal look from the great Ingvar Sigurðsson says everything you need to know that’s boiling beneath the surface.

A White, White Day is a stunningly beautiful piece of art.

Resultantly, A White, White Day possesses some merit as a measured, convincing adult drama, but its continual opaqueness is often maddening.