The Love That Remains (Ástin sem eftir er)

 

Director Hlynur Pálmason

Pálmason and his three children

The Love That Remains (Ástin sem eftir er)               B+                                                         Iceland  (109 mi)  2025  d: Hlynur Pálmason

Returning to the wilderness of his native East Iceland after years in Denmark, writer/director/cinematographer Hlynur Pálmason lives in a house on the outskirts of Höfn í Hornafirði without a single neighbor (Höfn í Hornafirði | The Majestic Town in South Iceland), just next door to Europe’s biggest glacier, Vatnajökull, barely ever using his phone or going on the Internet.  One of cinema’s most singular contemporary artists, perhaps even Iceland’s greatest filmmaker ever, Pálmason has crafted a stunning family drama shot on 35mm that features his own three kids as the children, entrusting them with extensive scenes on their own, yet what stands out is the immense naturalness of the forboding Icelandic landscape mixed with the weirdness of the imagination, accentuated by an evocative old-school sounding piano that turns out to be a jazzy dulcet piano score by Harry Hunt from his 2015 Playing Piano for Dad album, Journeys YouTube (4:04), sounding effortless, becoming an intimate and at times surreal portrait of a fractured marriage.  In what was once a loving couple, industrial herring trawler Magnús (Sverrir Guðnason, an Icelandic-born Swedish actor in his first Icelandic-language part since childhood) and his wife Anna (Saga Garðarsdóttir) have now split up, though still share family meals and spend time together for the sake of the children, moody older teenage sister Ída and the more carefree twin boys Þorgils and Grímur, always accompanied by their ever-faithful Icelandic sheepdog Panda (Pálmason’s own dog), who provides one of the best dog performances ever captured on celluloid, winning the Palme Dog at Cannes.  Absence is a silent killer, as we never witness the break-up of the relationship, only its aftermath of silent suffocation, though the marriage may have been strained by his long trips at sea, where they have to balance the times he’s home and the time he’s away, with Anna convinced she’s better off without him, as then there is no one challenging her independence, which in Iceland is a special spirit that is unlike anywhere else.  With an immaculate sense of framing and pacing, and a heavy dose of humor, creating a space as strange as it is charming, lurking somewhere between Scandanavian filmmakers Ruben Östlund and Roy Andersson, the massiveness of the land commands our attention, as the family is often seen traipsing around the countryside, going on hikes, or just generally having fun and goofing off, where part of the beauty of the film is capturing the casualness and spontaneity of everyday moments in their lives and how they remain connected to the land and sea around them.  Offering a most vivid photograph of the emotions and dynamics that fluctuate under the monotony of the ordinary, inspired by impressionist artists like Sally Mann or Claude Monet, people who return again and again to what’s nearby, the film fully evokes the mantra “Work with what’s around me.”  She is a struggling artist who prefers to work outdoors, an abstract visual artist who works with time and deterioration, allowing her coarse rust prints to be exposed to the elements, whose vast and impressive works that take months to create are not appreciated, yet viewers can decide for themselves what they think, as her working methods blend into the harshness of the surrounding terrain, creating these huge canvases that are a reflection of the ever-shifting Icelandic landscape, time consuming and not easy to make, yet at the core they also reflect her inner spirit, vibrant and rebellious, standing out from the rest as an ode to a free spirit.

Strange and a little offbeat, where its infectious rhythm and narrative disruption creates an off-the-beaten-track playfulness, lending a whimsical air that certainly lightens an otherwise heavy subject matter, standing in stark contrast to the gut-wrenching despair of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage (Scener ur ett äktenskap) (1973).  Initially screening in the Cannes Premiere section, this is a departure from the epic scope of his earlier film GODLAND (2022), which won the Best Feature Film at the Chicago Film Festival that year, as this is a smaller, more contained film, more immersed in nature, accentuating what unites us and divides us, revealing the minor and major mistakes, and the confusions of an Icelandic family, including heartbrteak, miscommunication, and conflicting feelings about what constitutes family.  Exploring the times we live in, the director seems more fascinated in the small and tender moments we share, creating a film that is built from an observational perspective, capturing each nuance of the daily life of the characters, yet he’s not afraid to veer into dreamy surrealistic aspects that are absurdly funny, offering an impressionistic editing style, with a few extra-inconspicuous jumpcuts, feeling intimate and autobiographical, yet it’s an imaginary narrative.  A dark existential heaviness that might otherwise envelop some scenes is bypassed in a very playful way, which might also be related to the remoteness of the coastal town, where time is conceivably decelerated and life here follows a different rhythm.  One thing that stands out is how the kids and the dog run free, with as little supervision as possible, leaving awkward moments with their father who attempts to assert his authority to no avail, as they pretty much ignore him and do what they want, where the vast outdoors is their playground, making this feel like an extremely personal film, much like his earlier short film NEST (Hreiður) (2022), Гнездо / Nest / Hreiður (2022) dir. Hlynur Pálmason [1080p ... YouTube (22:23), where the entire film is a fixed shot from a single location, as these films feature his own kids.  While the short film shows them constructing a treehouse mostly out of sight of any adult presence, where their parents are referred to, but remain mostly offscreen, this film shows them constructing the figure of a knight hanging on a post, which resembles a scarecrow flapping in the wind, with the kids playfully shooting arrows at it, but the image changes over time and during the changing seasons, suggesting the passage of time.  However the relationship between the separated parents feels authentic, with the husband off at sea where he has to contend with vulgar, profanity-laden conversations of other men continually prying into his business, describing his relationship as “I know her and I don’t know her,” while the wife attempts to get recognition for her artwork, but the Swedish gallery owner (Anders Mossling) she meets isn’t really interested and seems more concerned with consuming local food and wine, whose offhanded remark “You’re finally single” does not go unnoticed (nor does his hilarious exit), yet it’s important to note that the interiority of her work is a product and consequence of the outside world, and cannot be fully understood if not seen in that contextual relationship.  Nonetheless, she strives to make sense of the world through her art and in raising her family, where the daily struggles of life become her personal challenge.  This revolving scenario between the lead characters constitutes the film, offering an existential internalized view of their lives, where it’s easy to get distanced and alienated from a shared journey they never expected. 

Ambitious and ambiguous at the same time, what stands out in the adult husband and wife relationship is the fragility of the experience, as both are impacted by the separation, though in different ways.  Each has their own life to lead, pursuing different careers, which entails something completely different from their partner’s experience, yet they share three kids, who still view their absent father as their Dad, and expect to see him regularly, with frequent absences, but they can live with that.  Their mother is a much less hands-on parent, allowing them plenty of freedom, where it’s hard to find anything that constitutes out of bounds, so they show a surprising resiliency, where it all feels normal after a while.  The life of an artist revolves around her work (actually the director’s own art that has been exhibited internationally), which in her case is extremely physical, requiring great dedication and effort, yet she appears driven by her own conceptionary approach, where each project is extremely well thought out, becoming a metaphor for what happens to corroding love over time.  The filmmaker takes no sides, and allows each their own complexities, which is matched by the unique intensity of the free-flowing imagery which is simply not like anything else we’ve seen, as it can be abstract, but also in-your-face, as the idiosyncratic endeavors never detract from the central emotional authenticity.  Without providing any easy answers, it’s important to understand that each has their own distinct personality, as does the nation of Iceland, which holds individuality in high esteem.  The on-again and off-again relationship of the parents feels genuine, as there are moments of tenderness and love, while also their partner can send them into a rage of anger and disgust, where the last thing they need is a sudden, unexpected visit to alter the ordinary rhythms of their lives.  This is typified in an early scene where Magnús shows up unexpectedly at her door, where she initially feels perturbed, but they share a long-held connection to what was once a family, and still is, just not the same, a little broken, leaving them each wounded and internally devastated, left adrift, but they share an unconditional love for their kids, The Love That Remains new clip official from Cannes Film ... YouTube (2:05). While there's a familiarity of a long-held love, there’s also a faint chance of reconciliation, where in one truly extraordinary scene, one of Magnús’s shipmates tells him he should be willing to do anything to save his family, likening it to a greenhouse, where you often have to repair and install new windows to keep the plants inside safe, constantly tending to them and removing the weeds.  But easily the best thing this film offers is the harmonious blend into that massive landscape, with beautiful sequences of Icelandic horses, perfectly accompanied by that pensive music, where the family romps into the great outdoors offer a supreme source of pleasure, where what’s especially impressive is the way the filmmaker weaves it all together, The Love That Remains new clip official from Cannes Film ... YouTube (1:22), delivering a poignant look at the essence of faded love and shared memories amidst the changing seasons, accentuated by that lovely piano score, raw and simple, like the Bo Harwood piano music heard as the parents tenderly tuck their children to bed at the end of John Cassavetes’ A Woman Under the Influence (1974), which feels like a summation of everything that came before.