‘A White, White Day’ Intensely Gazes at a Jealous Man’s Growing Meltdown

Alci Rengifo

“A White, White Day” begins under grey skies on a road in Iceland. We follow a vehicle through stretches of road before it careens off a cliff. Any other film might focus on just this accident, but here it is merely a catalyst for what will be one man’s boiling emotional journey. This is an intense yet meditative movie. It’s about people and their fragility. A man may look calm and collected on the outside, but then a long-hidden secret comes to fore, and hidden violence lashes out.

Ingimundur (Ingvar Sigurdsson) is a local police chief in a rural Icelandic town whose wife died in the opening car accident. Still processing the death and seeing a department therapist, Ingimundur finds escape while working on renovations at home and caring for his granddaughter Salka (Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir). Ingimundur’s own grown daughter likes it that way, she also drinks too much. While rummaging through some items he comes across a book and a photo, and suddenly there’s the suspicion his wife might have had a lover. Ingimundur begins to confide in friends and has a prime suspect, a local man named Olgeir (Hilmir Snær Guðnason) who the police chief sees amongst the men he plays soccer with. Possessed by suspicion and a growing jealousy, Ingimundur begins to follow Olgeir and sets himself up for a disastrous situation.

“A White, White Day” is the latest from an Icelandic film culture that has been producing some excellent thrillers, many of which fall under the radar of even arthouse devotees in the United States. Films like Baltasar Kormákur’s “The Oath” combine tension with intelligent, introspective writing of a near literary quality. “A White, White Day” announces Hlynur Palmason as a director capable of the kind of sharply-drawn drama associated with filmmakers like Iran’s Asghar Farhadi, where human behavior builds the story’s tension. We spend the first moments of the film being immersed in Ingimundur’s world and its routines. He’s the classic tough man used to authority, not in an abusive way, but he keeps his emotions well hidden. When friends or family offer condolences for his wife’s death he can only stare, and remains quiet even when his daughter breaks down in tears. For bedtime stories he tells Salka gruesome tales more apt for giving nightmares. Palmason’s visual strategy uses wide angles to show the vastness of the cold world Ingimundur inhabits and the music by Edmund Finnis evokes loneliness. Some scenes are simply spent with Ingimundur in his processing of loss. Then he finds the photo that sets in motion his fears, and the film transforms into a more searing work.

It is cliché for thrillers to use infidelity as a plot device. Revenge is one of the oldest tools in the storytelling box. The difference with a film like “A White, White Day” is that it’s not actually about vengeance, but about what this revelation then tells us about Ingimundur and his reaction. The level-headed man suddenly begins to break down. He asks one of his very masculine buddies if he’s ever cheated and the friend replies that yes, with a very nonchalant manner. Ingimundur can only reply that he never felt like wanting anyone other than his wife, but that only deepens the pain of suspecting she did seek someone else. He sits in the dark watching an old tape of him and his wife being intimate, and Palmason holds the shot on the excellent actor Ingvar Sigurdsson’s greyed Nordic profile, as the wheels in his mind turn. 

Few films capture so well what follows, which is the way jealousy and emotional pain became a white hot distraction. The respected police chief Ingimundur starts throwing tantrums, trashes an office and will soon explode on co-workers. Even Salka eventually can’t avoid his fury. During much of this time we will wonder if he’s simply imagining the affair, and if she did cheat much of his behavior makes us wonder what hidden side of Ingimundur his wife knew more closely. Compounding the tension is how in these small towns everyone knows each other, something Ingimundur must also be pondering as he tries to get answers. 

What begins as a slow burner builds to a visceral set of scenes where Ingimundur goes quite far in his quest for the truth, risking bloodshed and everything that has formed him for the sake of revenge. This is a real human tragedy, told with meticulous acting and a screenplay where words and conversations are not wasted. We are so used to fast-paced thrillers where all is settled with big shoot outs or rooftop fights, here is a film that builds its suspense with very human characters. “A White, White Day” moves with the confidence of a story that knows it doesn’t need too many bullets. An angry human heart is enough of a time bomb.

“A White, White Day” premieres April 17 on digital platforms.