A White, White Day

Ingvar Sigurðsson gives a heart-breaking performance as widowed cop who becomes increasingly obsessed with his wife’s death.

As time passes and seasons change in a remote Icelandic town, off-duty police chief Ingimundur (Ingvar Sigurðsson) doggedly works at renovating a new home and starting over, following his wife’s death in a car accident. Debilitated by grief, Ingimundur still has a warm and devoted relationship with his granddaughter, but is increasingly alienated from other people.

An accidental discovery about his wife sees Ingimundur’s detective instincts click back into gear. But this is no standard police procedural. Director Hlynur Pálmason’s highly original and emotionally complex drama is also an exploration of the ravages of loss. Hypnotic images highlight the beauty and strangeness of Iceland’s breathtaking landscape, while Sigurðsson’s towering performance reveals the interior devastation of a man consumed by loss.