When the Light Breaks (Ljósbrot)

 

Writer/director Runár Runársson

Runársson with actress Elín Hall

cinematographer Sophia Olsson

 

 

WHEN THE LIGHT BREAKS (Ljósbrot)                            B                                             Iceland  Netherlands  Croatia  France  (82 mi)  2024  d: Runár Runársson 

Things that appear black or white at first glance often have another side.  Even if something seems terrible at first glance, something beautiful can come out of it, if you take a closer look.  —Writer/director Runár Runársson

A no frills, low-key movie best experienced without knowing a thing about it ahead of time, taking place over a single day, between two remarkably filmed sunsets, where the Icelandic title Ljósbrot is that moment when the light breaks through in the morning.  At least initially this feels like an early Dardennes Brother’s movie, employing a very naturalistic style with the camera fixed on the back of the necks, but it quickly evolves into new territory, coming from a filmmaker whose works are all intensely personal.  A study of guilt, regret, and grief, both collectively and individually, yet anchored in everyday life, discovering it’s not just sadness, but a wide range of shifting emotions that stand out, a mix of beauty and sorrow, where humor and love may be found even in our darkest moments, where this is a ruminative film that creeps up on you, minimalist in form and style, carefully carving out distinct personalities, yet the centerpiece of the film revolves around a single character, Una (Elín Hall, short for Elín Sif Halldórsdóttir, an acclaimed Icelandic singer, songwriter, and actress, maker of four No. 1 singles, like her personalized cover of a David Bowie song, Elín Hall - As The World Falls Down (Official Video) YouTube, 4:33), an art student who is initially seen in the arms of Diddi (Baldur Einarsson), a fellow art student that we learn are in a band together, but we never see or hear them play.  Their relationship is kept secret, as he already has a smalltown girlfriend, Klara (Katla Njálsdóttir, who directs that music video and a collaborates on a music project together forming a pop duo called Mammaðin, mammaðín (@mammadin_), who is known to all the members of the band, so they meet in private, sitting on the rocks by the coast in a gorgeous sunset sequence, Clip from When The Light Breaks YouTube (1:02), discussing where they want to travel together, perhaps the Faroe Islands or Japan, but he leaves early the next morning, presumably to break up with Klara, informing her, “When I get back tomorrow night, we won’t have to hide anything anymore.”  But that moment never comes, as something unsettling occurs, which appears like a nightmarish dream sequence, especially the way the scene is introduced, where sleep gives way to a beautifully extended sequence of flickering lights passing above in the night sky, kind of like the yellow highway lines illuminated by car headlights in David Lynch’s LOST HIGHWAY (1997), but what gives it formidable artistic power is the hauntingly abstract nature of the images, unidentified at first until the camera pulls back, allowing us to see a darkened tunnel roadway with the lights passing overhead, accompanied by a starkly unique, solemnly ethereal piece of ancient music written by an Icelandic composer who grew up on the same street as the filmmaker and died unexpectedly at a relatively young age, Jóhann Jóhannsson - Odi et amo YouTube (3:12), part of a larger work based on what might be the most famous poem in Latin literature, Catullus 85 (I Hate and I Love) by the Roman poet Gaius Valerius Catullus.  That extraordinary introduction happens before the opening credits, leading to the normal routine of a school day in Reykjavík before the news reports the biggest tunnel disaster in Icelandic history, as a fireball consumes the inside of a tunnel, where nearly everyone inside perishes.  No names are initially announced, so we see students crowding around TV’s trying to get the latest updates, with many on their phones reaching out to friends and family members.  When Diddi doesn’t answer his phone, some of the other students get concerned, especially Gunni (Mikael Kaaber), Diddi’s brother who is completely distraught, with Una seen comforting him, reminding him nothing is known yet, so don’t expect the worst.       

Premiering in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, from the maker of Volcano (Eldfjall) (2011) and SPARROWS (2015), which are about broken family relationships, and ECHO (2019), composed of 56 small vignettes, revealing how well he works in a small format, it was easy to get this film mixed up with Payal Kapadia’s 2024 Top Ten List #3 All We Imagine as Light (Prabhayay Ninachathellam), as both titles sound similar and were playing on the same festival circuit at the exact same time, with actress Elín Hall winning a Silver Hugo as Best Actress at the 2024 Chicago Film Festival.  Set against the backdrop of Iceland’s ethereal landscapes, working on 16mm with cinematographer Sophia Olsson, who the director has worked with on all his films since they met at the National Film School of Denmark, what unfolds is a deeply introspective study of human intimacy, a journey through mourning, memory, and the unspoken connections between those left behind, shining a light on a new wave of Scandinavian cinema that examines the intenseness of being human.  While the chaos at the school was confusing enough, it is nothing like the chaos they encounter when a group of friends gather at a Red Cross crisis center (actually the architecturally designed Harpa (concert hall) with its unique glass façade), which is positively mayhem, a national tragedy of epic proportions, with Una learning soon enough that Diddi has died, eyeing her friends from a distance, where it’s clear they are processing his death, leaving everyone in a state of disbelief and powerlessness.  As the day unfolds, Una drifts between friends, family, and solitude, uneasy in any company, and unhappy alone, with the actress capable of conveying a wide range of emotions with barely perceptible changes of expression, using little to no dialogue, having a unique ability to subtly show what her character is going through, mostly dealing with hidden feelings while tasked with pent-up emotions.  What follows resembles the activities of a wake, where there is genuine warmth, humor, solidarity, and the comfort of a group, with the members of the band assembling with Una and Klara, awkwardly thrown together by their friends’ collective mourning, still associating Klara as Diddi’s girlfriend, which only disturbs Una even more, as only she and Gunni knew the true nature of their more recently developing relationship.  As they drink Stoli (Stolichnaya vodka) shots in a bar, Diddi’s favorite drink of choice, they hug and comfort one another, yet all are obviously miserable, with Una only feeling more distanced due to her carefully kept secret, like some kind of outcast, finding it hard not to be resentful towards Klara, who is on the receiving end of shared emotional support as Diddi’s openly acknowledged girlfriend, leaving her having to deal with her own personal crisis alone on a roller coaster of existential feelings.  Gunni feels especially close to her for this reason, but it still stings, leaving her ever more exasperated and alone, having to keep everything to herself, which just gnaws at her, as Diddi was one of the few people who accepted her as she was.  Klara claims she was initially jealous of Una being the only girl in Diddi’s band, but he informed her she had nothing to worry about as she’s a dyke.  The androgynous-looking Una with her short-cropped hair and boyish clothes informs her she’s not a lesbian, but pansexual, more openly attracted to all genders.  Still, there’s a chilliness in the air between them, with Una simply avoiding her as best she can, but they’re hanging out with the same group of friends, which makes that difficult.  In a small country like Iceland, with barely 400,000 inhabitants (only 5 were in Diddi’s high school class), everyone knows everyone, so concealing a relationship is no easy matter.   

With the film exploring a complex mixture of shock, jealousy, and anger, secrets can isolate people, yet grief can ultimately reconnect them, as there’s something about the healing effect of shared suffering.  Befitting of a national tragedy, with Icelandic flags hanging at half-mast, a service is held at Hallgrímskirkja, Iceland's largest church, a modernist architectural marvel designed by State architect Guðjón Samúelsson ("Iceland's extraordinary, futuristic churches"), where the sweeping shots of modern, concrete and glass architecture in Reykjavík contrasts sharply with the natural element of the vast, panoramic Icelandic landscapes, with the group hanging outside afterwards discussing the performance art classes held at school, with Una recounting how Diddi kept drinking one shot of Stoli after another until he finally passed out, making a weird comment on a variety of issues, from substance abuse and personal degradation to youthful resiliency, as he somehow managed to survive the ordeal.  Klara finds that a waste of time, disparaging that kind of performance art, but Una is able to show her how art often leads to undiscovered perspectives, actually broadening one’s outlook.  It is curious that we never hear the music the band plays, but we do see them let loose at an impromptu party, drinking and dancing furiously to the heavy metal music of Hatari’s HATARI – HATRIÐ MUN SIGRA YouTube (3:00), which translates to “Hate will prevail,” a song that won Söngvakeppnin 2019, a Eurovision song contest.  It’s an interesting aside into youth culture, finding a ferociously downbeat subject matter to match their own manic yet morose energy.  Like Christophe Honoré’s first feature, Seventeen Times Cécile Cassard (Dix-sept fois Cécile Cassard) (2002), especially the use of heavy metal rock to express a continuously disorienting mood, this is a delicately restrained film about the stages of grief and how we handle and go through it in different ways, yet it leads to the emotional catharsis that unites us all in our mourning, where nothing is remotely the same afterwards.  As the party ends, Una and Klara, thrown together under the most unfathomable circumstances, are seen standing on either side of a glass window, with their co-mingling, double reflections merging in a Persona-like image, with Una suddenly realizing Klara may reflect another undiscovered side of Diddi.  The sparse script never allows moments of melodrama or emotional excess, and is mostly understated throughout, though there are plenty of hugs and tears, but Una, in particular, plays it pretty close to the vest, cool, but never emotionally aloof, always present in the moment, allowing her face to reveal her combustible inner turmoil.  At such young ages, they are still searching for themselves, finally taking comfort in finding someone else who knows what they’re going through, where words feel unnecessary, as they intrinsically understand this shared moment of grief, mirrored by a moment when the two women brush their teeth side by side in Diddi’s bathroom, with Una at first reaching for a familiar toothbrush, but she stops herself, using her finger instead, joined by Klara who does the exact same thing, while the knowledge that Una has been in this exact same spot before lingers in the air.  Their unexpected closeness is part of the grieving process, just needing someone near to help drive away the engulfing pain, as the Odi et amo music is heard again as light on the water is reflected in another abstract shot that comes to define the fragility of the human spirit.  As the two women wander off into a familiar landscape, nature takes its course, both swallowed up by the colors of another gorgeous sunset, clinging together in the sheer beauty of the moment, as orange hues gently hover over a tranquil sea, allowing the fleeting beauty of nature to speak the unspeakable in its profound silences, literally bathing them in the haunting grace of the moment.    

2025 Top Ten List #4 Hamnet

 

Director Chloé Zhao

actress Jessie Buckley

the director and cinematographer with the two leads

author Maggie O'Farrell

Shakespeare and wife Anne Hathaway

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HAMNET                   A-                                                                                                        USA  Great Britain  (125 mi)  2025  d: Chloé Zhao

We know very little about Shakespeare, but we know even less about Agnes.                             —Maggie O’Farrell, Hamnet

A Shakespearean film that places the beloved author off to the sidelines and instead focuses largely upon his wife Agnes, whose feminine consciousness and domestic existence has been diminished and disrespected throughout history, as the infamous fame of her husband largely overshadows her considerable influence, yet not much is known about her, a marginal figure of literary history suddenly thrust into the middle of the action, though in 2007 feminist academic Germaine Greer wrote a book entitled Shakespeare’s Wife, which serves as a breeding ground for the film’s premise.  Adapted from the 2020 historical fiction novel by Irish author Maggie O’Farrell, it tells the story of a young boy, a twin who grows up in Stratford, as his mother Agnes stays at home while his father is away in London, writing plays and becoming famous, yet this is the imagined story of William Shakespeare’s young son Hamnet, who died completely unexpectedly at the age of 11, most likely from the bubonic plague, a tragedy of epic proportions that may have led to the outpouring of emotions in the play Hamlet, written around 1600, literally bringing him back to life, and serving as his fitting epitaph.  His brief and precious life was more significant than literary historians suppose, as in those days, the names Hamnet and Hamlet were interchangeable, one and the same, adding a different twist to Shakespeare’s legacy.  According to literary critic Harold Bloom, Hamlet is the birth of modern consciousness, and the cornerstone of the human self, representing an unparalleled depth of human complexity, viewing Hamlet as the most significant work of Western literature, Bloom on Hamlet.pdf.  When we attend a performance of Hamlet, or read it for ourselves, it becomes clear that Hamlet is a character who transcends the play, with Shakespeare addressing what he might have hoped for his young son Hamnet, a child on the verge of manhood, imagining what he might have become, endowing him with the best virtues of both a hero and a dreamer, where he is viewed as both hard and soft, cruel and gentle, also brutal and angelic, yet the profound effect this character has on our lives in indisputable.  Turning his young life into a film, providing a fictional backstory, is a unique interpretation, and one that resonates with modern audiences, with stellar performances bringing intimacy to a captivating story that could easily have been a distant period drama, like so many we’ve seen before, but Zhao builds a naturalistic story supported by a tactile, sensory visualization reminiscent of Terrence Malick, where fog, wind, rain, and the rustling of the leaves all seem to resonate, while also spending fleeting moments with the characters, focusing on people society often overlooks, where empathy is a core aspect of all her films, allowing viewers to become familiar and internalize their human characteristics, which supersedes any developing plot points.  What makes this film special is its rhythmic form, as Zhao allows the film to breathe, yet at its core, this is a film about the emergence of art, and how greatness often emerges from devastating personal loss. 

Some of the notable adaptations of Shakespeare to the screen are Laurence Olivier’s Oscar-winning HAMLET (1948), Grigori Kozintsev’s HAMLET (1964), Kenneth Branagh’s HAMLET (1996), Orson Welles’ MACBETH (1948), Akira Kurosawa’s Macbethian adaptation, THRONE OF BLOOD (1957), along with Béla Tarr’s made-for-television MACBETH (1983), Justin Kurzel’s MACBETH (2015), and Joel Coen’s 2022 Top Ten List #5 The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021), Orson Welles’ OTHELLO (1951), Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s JULIUS CAESAR (1953), Laurence Olivier’s RICHARD III (1955), Robert Wise’s Oscar-winning adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story (1961), Franco Zeffirelli’s ROMEO AND JULIET (1968), Baz Luhrmann’s ROMEO + JULIET (1996), Orson Welles’ amalgamation of scenes from various Shakespeare plays Chimes at Midnight (Campanadas a Medianoche) (1966), Gus van Sant’s Henry IV Pt. I adaptation, My Own Private Idaho (1991), Franco Zeffirelli’s THE TAMING OF THE SHREW (1967), Peter Brook’s KING LEAR (1971), Grigori Kozintsev’s KING LEAR (1971), Akira Kurosawa’s King Lear adaptation, RAN (1985), Jean-Luc Godard’s KING LEAR (1987), Woody Allen’s A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982), Julie Taymor’s A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM (2015), Paul Mazursky’s THE TEMPEST (1982), Kenneth Branagh’s HENRY V (1989) and MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (1993), Josh Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing (2012), Ian McKellen’s RICHARD III (1995), Trevor Nunn’s TWELFTH NIGHT (1996), Kenneth Branagh’s LOVE’S LABOURS LOST (2000) and AS YOU LIKE IT (2006), Michael Radford’s THE MERCHANT OF VENICE (2004), and Ralph Fiennes’ CORIOLANUS (2011), though the most famous may be John Madden’s amusing, Oscar-winning, behind-the-scenes reimagining of the genesis of Romeo and Juliet in SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE (1998).  Of all these versions, this is the only one to exclusively feature Agnes, with William (the name Shakespeare is only mentioned at the very end, and never mentioned in the book) playing more of a background role, basically flipping the switch on what we’re used to seeing, offering a female perspective, directed by an immigrant Chinese-American filmmaker, Chloé Zhao, a graduate of NYU’s prestigious Tisch School of the Arts, becoming the first woman of color to receive an Academy Award for Best Director with 2021 #5 Film of the Year Nomadland (2020).  Her earlier semi-Western films, Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015) and 2018 Top Ten Film List #1 The Rider, were both shot on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, journeys of self-discovery shot in the American West, delving into rarely explored strata of American society.  With this film, Zhao has created something that is wrenchingly sad, an elegiac remembrance of a lost child, which is easily one of the most difficult tragedies for anyone to experience, as all that hope and promise of a new life is cut short, never to materialize, but Shakespeare essentially memorializes this tragedy of grief and loss into one of the greatest works of art, inducing a cathartic theatrical experience, reminding us of the resilience of love and memory. 

Set in the shadow of the Protestant Reformation, adapted by Zhao in collaboration with Maggie O’Farrell, eloquently scored by the incomparable Max Richter, Of the undiscovered country (From The Original Motion Picture ... YouTube (5:22), the film opens with a written prologue from Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt that reveals, “Hamnet and Hamlet are in fact the same name, entirely interchangeable in Stratford records in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.”  Opening in a deeply wooded, bucolic setting (shot in Gloucestershire’s Forest), Agnes (Jessie Buckley from Charlie Kaufman’s I'm Thinking of Ending Things in 2020) is an almost mythical figure, a farmer’s daughter more at home in the forest than with her family, where she has an abusive father, finding refuge in the silence and solitary world of nature, seen attracting a flying hawk to her gloved hand, developing a spiritual closeness to all the plants and animals, proficient in the herbal qualities of various plants for medicinal purposes, where she’s something of a local healer, but she’s equally capable of reading people’s hands, sensing things before they happen while discovering their undetected emotional truths.  As the heart of the movie, her fiery Oscar-worthy performance is raw, physical, and demanding, which can be showy at times, but excels in quiet restraint, choosing contemplation over drama, where much of what’s so convincing about her is expressed through close-ups without uttering a single word.  Lurking in the nearby vicinity, William (Paul Mescal) is a Latin tutor to a classroom of uninterested students, but he’s taken by what he sees out the window, which is the figure of Agnes, so he follows her to a nearby barn.  Following a brief kiss, she urges him to stay away, not wishing to add to the local gossip that considers her an outcast, the daughter of a forest witch (an outgrowth of paganism), yet she’s proud of her ability to concoct healing potions, which seems to define what she’s about, as she’s a complex woman, an unapologetically, unconventional spirit who intuitively sees the world differently than the rest of us, HAMNET - "When We Kiss" Official Clip YouTube (53 seconds).  Seeing that firsthand, the more introverted William is intrigued, following her to a nearby cave, where she convinces him to tell her a story.  He significantly chooses the heartbreaking legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, one of the great love stories from Greek mythology.  Having captured her attention, she grabs hold of his hand, foretelling that his future will be something great, while she sees herself dying with two children.  Enamored with each other, they passionately make love, resulting in her pregnancy.  Her parents angrily banish her from their household, forced to seek refuge in the attic of William’s family, who are less than enthused, but they hastily marry, with most of the film taking place in the Shakespeare home in rural Stratford-upon-Avon, as Agnes has her first child alone in the woods, which is where William and her supportive younger brother Bartholomew (Joe Alwyn) find her, discovering they are both doing well.   

Another holiday release that critics are raving about, though some may feel the big moments of grief, especially the screeching and the crying, are demonstrably supercharged, and while that may be true, there’s also a maturity here demonstrated in the cinematic restraint that separates what this film brings to the screen, a place where love, grief, and art all converge.  Elegantly and beautifully shot by Łukasz Żal, from Pawel Pawlikowski’s 2014 Top Ten List #2 Ida (2013) and Cold War (Zimna wojna) (2018), also Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest (2023), using mobile cameras, natural light, and a constant fusion between landscape, human presence, and time, this film takes its time getting started, as it’s a slow build where you get to know these characters and follow their journey, but once it kicks in, it packs an emotional wallop.  Settling into domestic life, their commitment never wavers, but it’s clear William is struggling balancing home life with his writing career, so he is urged to move to London where he can immerse himself in the theater community.  As a result, he is gone for prolonged periods of time working on his plays, causing a strain on their relationship, leaving Agnes to raise her family alone, which she does impeccably.  What’s interesting is the way Zhao weaves the DNA of his writing from their family experiences, which are woven into the film so naturally that they feel organic, like William jotting down lines from Romeo and Juliet following their first kiss.  Both William and Agnes come from abusive fathers, as he is seen standing up to his father, a glove maker who forcibly tries to prevent him from leaving a room of manual labor, calling him “useless,” striking him several times, but William strikes back, claiming he will never tolerate that abuse again.  Both seem to have channeled this kind of injurious patriarchal harm into creative outlets, where she has a mysterious connection to nature, while he is a penniless but aspiring writer with a destiny to become arguably the greatest writer in all of history.  With another birth on the way, this time William’s mother Mary (Emily Watson) restrains Agnes from venturing into the woods, giving birth to twins, a boy, Hamnet, followed by a girl Judith who is presumably born stillborn, but miraculously comes back to life.  The kids are very close, especially the twins, who often fool people, even their father, by dressing as each other, where among the more delightful early scenes is watching them enthusiastically portray the witches scene from Macbeth to the awe of their parents, a beautiful blend of the innocence of childhood with the dramatic power of what Shakespeare would become, which is emphasized further when Hamnet dreams of playing a swordfight scene in one of his father’s plays, HAMNET - "What Do You Wish To Do" Official Clip YouTube (1:13).  But William has to return to London to work on his new play, lovingly saying his warm goodbyes to Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe), HAMNET - "I Have To Go" Official Clip YouTube (1:00). 

Things take a tragic turn when Judith becomes afflicted by the plague, growing sick and feverish, with Hamnet providing comfort, even crawling into bed with her when it’s clear she may be lost, but by morning she has a miraculous recovery, only to discover Hamnet is dead, a fate that in the 16th century was tragically common, affecting about a third of all children in England before the age of ten.  The effect is immediate, as the parents are inconsolable with grief.  Agnes is filled with anger that William was not there for him when it happened, forcing her to bear that monumental loss alone, where her raw grief is not interpreted but feels immersive, literally swallowing her up whole, while also losing her ability to predict the future anymore, as something is broken between them.  Finding themselves lost, struggling to find purpose, each processes their grief differently, with William reciting Hamlet’s To be or not to be soliloquy on the banks of the Thames, with suicidal thoughts about throwing himself into the river.  Some may find this too melodramatic or overwrought, but the truth is losing a child is a distinct and awful kind of grief, which this film recognizes.  “What is given may be taken away at any time,” Mary says at one point, quietly ruminating on the deaths of her own daughters.  Mary provides Agnes with a flyer about William’s upcoming play in London entitled The Tragedy of Hamlet, which sends her into a furor about invoking his name, while William grows frustrated with his actors while rehearsing the play, trying to instill more passion into their performances.  Agnes and Bartholomew secretly attend the first performance of Hamlet at the massive open-air Globe Theatre in London, still outraged at the name of the play, yet these final few scenes are among the most dramatically powerful sequences in recent memory, as it’s all read on her face, angry and indignant at first, but as she slowly realizes it’s like an intimate love letter written exclusively for her, that anger turns to sheer amazement, likely seeing a play literally for the very first time.  Seeing her son onstage reborn into the character of Hamlet is beautifully portrayed by none other than the real-life older brother, Noah Jupe, cast to look like her late son, exactly the same age Hamnet would have been, had he lived, whose scintillating swordplay onstage is simply thrilling to see through the eyes of his mother.  William himself plays the ghost of Hamlet’s father, talking from beyond the grave to his son, speaking the final line of the novel, “Remember me,” evoking emotions so profoundly moving and emotionally devastating that audiences can’t help but react, especially reliving Hamlet’s tragic death onstage, with Agnes, standing right in front of the stage, reaching out to his hand (followed by others, miraculously shown in an overhead shot), briefly seeing the son she always imagined, smiling for the first time since his death, and finally seeing her husband in a new light, with transcendent music by Max Richter successfully moving across earthly realms to the “undiscovered country” of other side, Max Richter - On The Nature Of Daylight (Official Video) YouTube (6:36), which is exactly what this music was meant to convey.  It’s an astonishing moment and a brilliant piece of communal cinema that is provoking extreme emotional reactions, yet deserving all the accolades.  Group crying goes back to Homer and the Greeks, as Odysseus and Achilles wept openly with their men, viewing it as a fundamental aspect of the human experience.  This is a film where you can feel the pain manifest in the theater, literally transporting viewers into a different sentient space, becoming a meditative experience about love and the creative power of remembering, also the redemptive power of live theater.  By grounding one of literature’s greatest tragedies in domestic life, Zhao offers something rare, a Shakespeare story that feels deeply human, rooted in authenticity and emotional truth.