The Ice Tower

Bluesky

A vast world of ice and snow. A runaway orphan girl in a red coat. An imperious woman garbed with crystals and furs, the central figure in a magical world of storytelling. All the pieces of a classic fairy tale are present in Lucile Hadžihalilović’s coruscating drama, but something is amiss. The snow queen is not what the girl perceives her to be. In the gulf between childhood and adulthood lie unsuspected dangers. For all its delights, The Ice Tower, when it crumbles, will leave you on the cold hill’s side.

The story begins with a story: Hans Christian Anderson’s tale, told by our young heroine, Jeanne (Clara Pacini) to a still younger girl named Rose. Before Jeanne leaves, a gift is exchanged. Small beads ensure remembrance; when she looks at them, Jeanne will remember Rose, and her humanity. This will comfort her on her journey through a land of monsters, as she sets out along a dark road in pursuit of her dreams. She will pass an ice rink, meet a girl who briefly intrigues her, and steal her name: Bianca. With nowhere else to go, she will take refuge in a film studio, sleeping on a pile of shimmering white fabrics, awakened by a fall of artificial snow. She also acquires a crystal, fallen from an actress’ gown, through which everything looks beautiful.

The actress is Cristina (Marion Cotillard), and she is playing the Snow Queen in a film. When Jeanne/Bianca finds her way into a role as an extra, it’s the perfect cover for spying on this fascinating woman. Whether peering through a crack in a wall to watch her rehearse, or hiding in her wardrobe to observe a private conversation, the girl is enchanted by these glimpses of the adult world, by what she sees of Cristina’s power over others, her cruelty, her loneliness and her glamour. It’s not long until the actress catches sight of her and, in turn, becomes intrigued by this innocent creature in her orbit, by her unspeaking devotion. It’s easy to mistake such bold intimacy for understanding.

Cotillard is at her very best as a character we see only from the sidelines – earthy and opinionated in flashes, yet frozen by her art. Seeing her from this distance emphasises Cristina’s isolation, cut off as she is from her expected audience and from the various people whom she might expect to be close to, with professional relationships intruding into the personal until she can no longer tell the difference. How does she see herself reflected in Bianca’s eyes? Once a resident of a foster home herself, and perhaps still carrying some of that damage, she regards the girl hungrily; but dazzled as she is, Bianca seems unable to recognise the danger.

The film is set in the Seventies, whose preponderant hues of brown and orange contrast very effectively with the mysterious white and silver of the queen, as indeed they do with the environment surrounding the small town where the studio is based. The winding road back up to the orphanage is surrounded by towering peaks whose icy summits merge into the stormclouds above. Outdoors, one must constantly concentrate one’s gaze on the municipal and the mundane, or else be swept away by the sublime. There is an ever-present sense of the smallness of human kind. Only the Snow Queen walks tall, challenging Cristina to bear her weight, with Bianca caught in her wake. Even the magic of cinema struggles to contain her.

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