A White, White Day (2019)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

A White, White Day (2019) – H. Pálmason

Ingvar Sigurdsson stars as Ingimundur, a widower grandfather and ex-policeman, grieving for his recently deceased wife. He’s stoic and devotes himself to building a house in a remote and scenic part of the country (Iceland). Director Hlynur Pálmason employs static shots of this house at different times of the day and different seasons to convey the sense of time passing. There is some beautiful camerawork here and mesmerising shots and vistas. Ingimundur is seeing a psychologist (and not very forthcoming) but only gradually do we realise that he has been obsessing over some thoughts about his wife’s possible infidelity. The actions he takes are not rational but they are emotionally consistent. Call it toxic masculinity, if you will, and he is not the only man marred by this in the film.  It's slow cinema but eventually the film crescendos with violence, an awkward almost embarrassing violence (made more so because it’s witnessed by Ingimundur’s 8 year old granddaughter). The ending is open to interpretation but may suggest that for men of a certain constricted type, there may be no peace without a full-throttled defence of their (precarious) masculinity.