When the Light Breaks, 2024.
Written and Directed by Rúnar Rúnarsson.
Starring Elín Hall, Mikael Kaaber, Katla Njálsdóttir, Ágúst Örn B. Wigum, Gunnar Hrafn Kristjánsdóttir, and Baldur Einarsson.
SYNOPSIS:
When the light breaks on a long summer’s day in Iceland. From one sunset to another, Una, a young art student, encounters love, friendship, sorrow and beauty.
From Iceland’s Rúnar Rúnarsson, When the Light Breaks effectively fills a minimalistic plot with gutting emotional impact. This is a film about grieving, but rather than one spread out over a select period, it unfolds over one day, locked into the sudden shock and overwhelming emotion from learning of a loved one’s far too soon tragic death.
Elín Hall’s Una is in a loving relationship with Baldur Einarsson’s Diddi. The problem is that this is an affair since Diddi is technically still with his long-distance partner Klara (Katla Njálsdóttir), although he has promised to officially break up with her in person the next day, driving to her. That’s when disaster strikes in the form of collisions in a tunnel, causing several explosions that set the area on fire and take countless lives.
Following a hectic but brief period of uncertainty about whether Diddi survived, the film taps into that immense heart-pounding fear and the line between badly wanting the truth, even if it’s horrible news. From there, Una finds herself among Diddi’s friend group, morning and celebrating who he was while desperately trying to hold it together. Complicating matters is that Klara has immediately come to visit upon hearing the news, receiving all the sympathy since no one actually knows he had eventually realized there was more of a connection with Una and that they had fallen in love. The two were enrolled in an art school, taking a performance class, which Klara seems to have found silly. The distance between each other didn’t help.
Rúnar Rúnarsson smartly refrains from judging these characters or this affair and turning this into a trashy soap opera. There is a profoundly empathetic pain in watching Una essentially feel trapped from explicitly showing how much Diddi meant to her. The longer the day goes on, the more that emotional suppression feels as if it’s finally going to erupt during a group session, singing along to music with friends. Naturally, scenes alongside Klara come with an awkward uncomfortableness, but the two begin to bond and grieve together.
The downside is that, even with a short 79-minute running time that struggles to reach the 70-minute mark (it lingers on sunset for roughly 3 minutes before fading into ending credits), there isn’t much going on here. Some scenes, including an altercation with an angry driver, feel tossed on just to give the characters something else to do for a few minutes. When the Light Breaks has a skeletal narrative brought to life by Sophia Olsson’s vibrant cinematography and an emotionally absorbing turn from Elín Hall.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
