🧊 Synopsis
Life in the treacherous wild tundra of Greenland is not easy: it is not the bold who thrive, but the tough. Peter Flinth portrays these ideas beautifully in his 2022 film “Against the Ice,” where he shows the stark contrasts between bravery and true survival skills. The film is based on the real events of 1909 when Ejnar Mikkelsen, a Danish Explorer, went on a life-threatening mission to protect his country’s claim on the unclaimed northeastern coastline of Greenland. The expedition of the ship turns into a tragic psychological battle with the Arctic surroundings, bringing deeper challenges than mere survival.
Alongside the Captain begins Mikkelsen and Iver Iversen, a young mechanic with nil polar experience. There are only two men capable of collecting critical map data from the ruins of a previous expedition. They both had a team from base camp that set off willingly into a desolate wasteland that to frostbite and glaciers proves indifferent to patriotic sentiment, personal ambition, or glory.
As time goes on and a rescue becomes less plausible, despair, hunger, and frostbite set in. Fight the cold and the mystifying introspective rage that comes along with isolation and hallucinations, all the while questioning if you will ever be remembered, or if the answer is no.
🎭 Main Cast & Characters
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Ejnar Mikkelsen
An explorer saturated with a deep rooted belief in mission and a burden of pride (and responsibility). He is portrayed with sustained fury that slowly reveals a man buckling to the pressure of glory in the Coster-Waldau fashion.
Joe Cole as Iver Iversen
Starting off as completely lost, Iversen matures into the role—turning into a silent pillar of emotional strength. The vulnerability and grit of Arctic survival is painted on through Joe Cole’s performance, humanizing the horrors that lie within.
Heida Reed as Naja (Vision)
Mirage woman of fantasized Mikkelsen’s world, and the symbol of all things forgotten. Even though she is just a distant vision, her cold presence radiates warmth.
Charles Dance as Neergaard
Yet another Danish bureaucrat back home who is the epitome of the indifference and cold machinery behind a heroic sacrifice.
🎬 Direction & Cinematography
Flinth’s hand is light while guiding the story, letting the setting breathe as the film’s additional character. The cinematography is breathtaking but still, paying attention to large and wide shots of ever-silent barren snowfields. This snow world thicker and more oppressive than the tents filled with exhaustion and broken minds.
Drone shots cut through frozen oceans and glacier walls. Alongside the beauty lies an existence blanketed with suicidal thoughts haunting the viewers exposing the true curse – inevitable insignificance. Close-up shots are limited but they leave a strong impact. Capturing unending weary stares that appear to plead with the universe, asking, “Where’s the end?”
The score composed by Volker Bertelmann (Hauschka) abstains from using overly-sentimental constructs of music, rather gentle strokes of the piano blended with barely audible whispers of oscillation to work as enhancer—not manipulator. Paradoxically, it is the silence that follows the chords that renders the most frostbite inducing.
🧠 Themes & Analysis
Isolation as Adversary
Aside from how glacial temperatures lull one’s mind into submission, it is the isolation that consumes sanity from the inside out. As the film progresses, it has an uncanny feeling of turning into a study of pure psychological-dynamics of two men, devoid of society. Once Iversen begins hallucinating and Mikkelsen is engaging ghosts in conversations, you understand this is not an oppositional dynamic of people trying to navigate through nature: this is a single entity battling themselves.
The Futility of Glory
Mikkelsen’s fixation on placing Denmark’s flags and refuting American claims becomes more trivial as the struggle for survival becomes more important. His greatest fear is not death; it is being left behind, having no one remember him. The film critiques the notion of a legacy of blood and bone; the price of “legacy” mortgaged on blood and bone.
Brotherhood in the Brutal
Mikkelsen and Iversen go from being formally polite strangers to becoming each other’s lifeline. No tearful monologues, no heroically triumphant music. Their bond is forged silently, through sacrifice, and the decision to survive for each other when there is nothing left to hope for.
The Human Spirit in the Void
Against the Ice makes no attempt to glorify endurance while surviving through frostbite, starvation, and delusion. However, the film respects this level of endurance. It poses the question: what does survival entail when there is no one to observe?
📅 Production & Historical Context
- Director: Peter Flinth
- Writers: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau & Joe Derrick
- Based On: Two Against the Ice by Ejnar Mikkelsen
- Producers: Ill Kippers, RVK Studios, Baltasar Kormákur
- Cinematography: Torben Forsberg
- Music: Volker Bertelmann
- Language: English (Danish accents)
- Running Time: 102 minutes
- Streaming Platform:Netflix
- Release Date: March 2, 2022
Shot in Iceland and Greenland, the film’s commitment to realism was so intense that the cast and crew experienced real Arctic conditions. It dramatizes the historical fiction of Denmark’s territorial dispute with the United States over Greenland’s sovereignty, which adds a political undertone to the film’s quiet intensity.
🏆 Reception & Response
Critics had mixed feelings, praising the performances and atmosphere of the film, but struggled with the pace. Some found the pacing to be slow, which others countered by saying it was too meditative.
Rotten Tomatoes: 67% (Critics), 74% (Audience)
Indie Wire: “A gripping comparison of the character interactions alongside a painful journey of survival, aided by two remarkable performances.”
The Guardian: “The struggle is never whether they will return, but what the cost of returning is.” Evocative audience reactions followed the film’s understated last act, and particular reaction was given to the ending which, depicting a real-life tragedy, subdued the victory over triumph.
📺 Impact on Netflix
The film premiered in the top 10 on Netflix globally, accumulating more than 20 million hours of viewing within the first week—marking it as one of the most-watched international historical dramas in Q1 2022.
🌨️ Reasons To Watch
If you enjoy narratives where the metaphysical struggle within a world where existence is at stake alongside death, memory, and human endurance is present, you will Against the Ice. It is undeniably calm and slow, but still calm in this case means it’s roaring. It’s more than just surviving; it’s in enduring the cold where a man has been forgotten, and the blaze deep within him that fuels him to keep moving in times when all hope is frozen.
Watch Free Movies on Gomovies