ICE, Baltasar Kormákur, Director
Starring: Johan Sigurdarson, Olafur Darri Olafsson, Hilmikr Snaer Gudnasson, Margaret Vilhjalmsdóttir, Laufy Eliasdóttir
At risk of sounding overenthusiastic, Baltasar Kormákur’s White Night Wedding absolutely floored me. Following on the footsteps of The Sea, White Night Wedding
places Icelandic cinema firmly within the greater Scandinavian cultural
tradition. While you can easily sit back and enjoy this movie merely
for its beautiful portrayal of an ever-inspiring landscape, and its
singular Icelandic humor, Kormákur would seem to accomplish ever so much
more – in fact, despite the film’s pedigreed relationship to Anton
Chekov’s play, Ivanov, I felt that the film could also be alternately
titled “Adventures of Tesman, Hedda Gabbler’s Forgotten Mate” after one
of Henrik Ibsen’s most memorably forgettable characters.
Reminiscent of Ingrid Bergman, Kormákur seems to take Soren Kierkegaard, the Nordic Philosopher, straight-on. In fact, Kormákur does Bergman one better by allowing Kierkegaard to take his silly and illogical leap of faith, and to benefit by it. Where Bergman often mired himself in Scandinavian tragic morosity, both Lasse Hallström, a fellow Scandinavian, and Kormákur have allowed their characters to relax, literally take the leap of faith, and hit a stable grounding wherein happiness or contentment can be found without a steep loss of personal direction or universal grounding. Perhaps all is summed up best in a near-closing quote by Jon as professor, “The purpose of life isn’t death, even if that is the end result. Just as love or happiness isn’t the purpose of life, as such…rather the quest. The quest for love, the quest for happiness”.
