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There is always something mysterious about movies set in Iceland with its eerie mix of cold weather and freezing winds, snow and fog. Such is the case with A White, White Day, an unsettling psychological drama written and directed by Hlymur Palmason. An anonymous quotation appears on the screen to set the tone for the story that will follow: "The dead can still talk to those who are still living."
Ingimundur (Ingvar Sigurdsson) is a middle-aged semi-retired policeman. His beautiful and alluring wife died two years ago when her car crashed through a guard rail on the highway and plunged into the water below. In order to stem the tide of grief that has overtaken him, he looks after his eight-year-old granddaughter Salka (Ida Mekkin Hlynsdottir) and works on refurbishing a house for her and her parents.
From the beginning of the film, we are caught up in the slow movement of time as the director focuses on the house in a series of static shots of the different seasons. Later, as we watch Ingimundur work on the house, we sense that he needs this remote setting and the satisfaction of accomplishing something to get over his grief. But it is taking time. He does see a therapist, but as someone not used to expressing his feelings the closest he comes to talking about his wife is when he says he misses her cutting his hair.
The breakthrough scene in A White, White Day comes when Ingimundur looks through a box containing some of his wife's treasured objects -- books, photographs, clothes, and the like. But it turns out these things have negative energies for him. He begins to suspect that his wife was having an affair with another man (Hilmir Snaer Guonason). His rage over this erupts during a visit with his former colleagues at the police station. He then goes to the man's house and demands he come with him to an isolated place.
There are even more surprises to come in this powerfully realized psychological film. There are also some striking images. Driving his granddaughter home, Ingimundur stops the car to see what they have hit. It turns out to be a large boulder in the middle of the highway. He throws it over the cliff, but we see there are more problems where that one came from. The camera sweeps the hillside for other moving stones and follows one's long descent to the water.
Is this moment symbolic of what is happening in Ingimundur's life? Perhaps. But there are saving graces in the film too, such as a scene in a mountain tunnel in which Ingimundur and Salka listen for their echoes.
There is much to reflect upon in A White, White Day. For now, let us ponder some of these imponderables: the burdens of grief, the power of things to bring back both memories and resentments, and the destructive power of anger and revenge.