PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Hlynur Pálmason, director of the film A White, White Day.
An interview with Hlynur Pálmason, director of A White, White Day, screened as part of the Dare section of the 2019 BFI London Film Festival. The film was first presented earlier this year at the Cannes Film Festival, where it bagged awards and garnered much critical acclaim. Here, Pálmason talks about this immersive character story and the overall sensorial experience of style and setting that lend power to the actual narrative of the film.
A White, White Day: As time passes and seasons change in a remote Icelandic town, off-duty police chief Ingimundur (Ingvar Sigurðsson) doggedly works at renovating a new home and starting over, following his wife’s death in a car accident. Debilitated by grief, Ingimundur still has a warm and devoted relationship with his granddaughter, but is increasingly alienated from other people. An accidental discovery about his wife sees Ingimundur’s detective instincts click back into gear. But this is no standard police procedural. Director Hlynur Pálmason’s (Winter Brothers, LFF 2017) highly original and emotionally complex drama is also an exploration of the ravages of loss. Hypnotic images highlight the beauty and strangeness of Iceland’s breathtaking landscape, while Sigurðsson’s towering performance reveals the interior devastation of a man consumed by loss.
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