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Film Data
A White, White Day  2019
Hvítur, Hvítur Dagur / En Hvid, Hvid Dag
Director:  Hlynur Pálmason
Producer:
  Anton Máni Svansson
Art Director:
  Árni Jónsson
Editor:
  Julius Krebs Damsbo
Music:
  Edmund Finnis
Screenplay:
  Hlynur Pálmason
Director of Photography:
  Maria von Hausswolff
slideshow
Cast:
spacer1 Ingvar Sigurðsson
spacer1 Ida Mekkin Hlynsdóttir
spacer1 Hilmir Snær Guðnason
spacer1 Björn Ingi Hilmarsson
spacer1 Elma Stefanía Ágústsdóttir
spacer1 Sara Dögg Ásgeirsdóttir
spacer1 Haraldur Stefansson
spacer1 Laufey Elìasdóttir
spacer1 Sigurður Sigurjónsson
spacer1 Arnmundur Ernst Björnsson
spacer1 Þór Hrafnsson Tulinius
spacer1 Sverrir Þór Sverrisson
spacer1 Ingvar Sigurðsson spacer1 Ida Mekkin Hlynsdóttir spacer1 Hilmir Snær Guðnason
spacer1 Björn Ingi Hilmarsson spacer1 Elma Stefanía Ágústsdóttir spacer1 Sara Dögg Ásgeirsdóttir
spacer1 Haraldur Stefansson spacer1 Laufey Elìasdóttir spacer1 Sigurður Sigurjónsson
spacer1 Arnmundur Ernst Björnsson spacer1 Þór Hrafnsson Tulinius spacer1 Sverrir Þór Sverrisson
spacer1 Ingvar Sigurðsson spacer1 Ida Mekkin Hlynsdóttir
spacer1 Hilmir Snær Guðnason spacer1 Björn Ingi Hilmarsson
spacer1 Elma Stefanía Ágústsdóttir spacer1 Sara Dögg Ásgeirsdóttir
spacer1 Haraldur Stefansson spacer1 Laufey Elìasdóttir
spacer1 Sigurður Sigurjónsson spacer1 Arnmundur Ernst Björnsson
spacer1 Þór Hrafnsson Tulinius spacer1 Sverrir Þór Sverrisson

Synopsis:

Following 2017’s Winter Brothers, the title of writer / director Hiynur Palmason’s second feature, Hvítur, Hvítur Dagur / A White, White Day is explained in the opening on-screen statement, claimed to be an old proverb, ‘On such days when everything is white, and you can no longer any difference between the Earth and the sky, then the dead can talk to us’, and the ominous nature of that phrase very much matches the solemnity of Palmason’s intense and deeply unsettling drama, which begins as a character study of grief, and turns into something far more malevolent and damaging.

The film opens with scenes very much resembling the opening of Roger Donaldson’s underrated 1981 drama Smash Palace, as a solo car drives down long and twisty roads, before a disastrous accident. We later learn the driver was the wife of Police chief Ingimundur, played by Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson, an impressive actor seen in the ‘first wave’ of Icelandic film production to get international recognition, in films such as Devil’s Island / Djöflaeyjan (1996) and Jar City / Mýrin (’06) and being constantly in demand ever since, recently being seen in international productions including Everest and Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindewald and the popular Icelandic TV series Trapped / Ófærð, which screened on BBC Four. A middle-aged man, but obviously fit and active, his job-mandated period of leave has had him turn his considerable energies to renovating a farmhouse where his daughter (Elma Stefania Agustdottir) and his beloved granddaughter, Salka (the utterly angelic Ìda Mekkin Hlynsdóttir), can live, but it is obvious that he is truly struggling to deal with the loss of his spouse.

It is a discovery made while going through his wife’s belongings that plants the seed in his mind that his wife was having an affair with a younger man, Olegir (Hilmer Snær Guðnason - 101 Reykjavik / Guy X), with whom Ingimundur plays football, and this notion threatens to completely destroy him. Worse, Ingimundur, instead of trying to forgive her and himself, seems instead to be intent on punishing both himself and everyone around him, in increasingly alarming ways, torturing himself way watching old videos of himself and his wife being intimate, turning of his family and friends, and most alarmingly telling his granddaughter a bedtime story which gradually and horrifyingly becomes more and more graphically gruesome and brutal. It seems that if he has to suffer, so does everybody else around him, and soon this respected and well-loved man is becoming something else entirely, made all the more compelling through Sigurðsson’s performance.

Palmason’s second feature drew some truly glowing reviews on the festival circuit, Variety extolling ‘In light of my own experience with the film, I recommend the following. See it twice: a virgin viewing, simply to take in the strange counterintuitive way the story unfolds, and then again, with a bit of distance, knowing where the journey is headed, so that you might fully appreciate the genius of its construction. I’m convinced that A White, White Day is the work of one of the most important voices of this emerging generation, arriving at a stage where we have yet to learn his language’. The Film Stage believed ‘As darkly comic as it is foreboding–and boasting an outrageously rich and nuanced central performance from the great Icelandic actor Ingvar Sigurdsson, who plays the larger than life Ingimunder, a man more than capable of living up to the scale of his own name - [film] takes the tropes of a psychological thriller but presents them with a virtuosic and austere visual flare’ as The Hollywood Reporter noted ‘Palmason boldly risks audience disenfranchisement by pushing his disturbing story to unexpected lengths dramatically and stylistically, thereby winning a creative wrestling match with a potentially intransigent narrative’.

Even those with reservations agreed on the films impact, Screen Daily calling it ‘A flesh and blood catalogue of ways to be masculine, from tender with his granddaughter to robustly no-nonsense with a weapon, Ingimundur is a fascinating character, splendidly portrayed’, and RogerEbert.com observing ‘It sometimes feels like Palmason is being a bit self-indulgent with his slow pace, but Ingvar Sigurdsson keeps the film grounded, and ends it with such a devastating, powerful final shot that it alone erases most criticisms. It may take a bit longer than it needed to get there, but the destination packs a wallop’.

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