Under the moody lilac skies of the Northern hemisphere, comes an 80-minute life sampler of the hopeful and free-spirited youths of Iceland, directed by Rúnar Rúnarsson. There’s only really two plot points of the whole film, which would explain its length; the rest is filled in with the characters’ – particularly Una’s – emotional conflicts as they try to navigate the immediate aftermath of the death of a close friend. We’re handed the complex themes of grief and guilt within the first few minutes, the latter of which is represented by our protagonist Una, played by actress and singer Elín Hall. Her counterpart Klara (Katla Njálsdóttir) who’s none the wiser to her late boyfriend’s infidelity, is our purer-souled griever, unknowingly caught up in a messy love triangle. 

A hum that sounds like a swarm of angry bees is the sound that greets the group in a room of similarly distressed families. When the Light Breaks makes sure to remind you this isn’t some spectacular tale, but an ordinary one – suffering is the one language everyone in the world speaks and understands. It lacks substance in plot, but this doesn’t seem unintentional. Rúnarsson wasn’t trying to make Anna Karenina here. 

The pacing is great for a film of its length, although that may have been aided by not much happening. Still, it gives plenty of space for atmospheric arc transition scenes like the lights that drag across the screen for a couple minutes, skewing off centre before they come into focus and we realise we’re in a tunnel. It’s got charm where it tries: the scene where the performance art students show off their projects is hilarious. One particularly beautiful scene between Una and Klara also uses creative cinematography to convince both the character and the audience of an optical illusion, while the actresses have great chemistry with one another. 

The only music in the film “Odi et Amo” is a peculiar piece by Jóhann Jóhannsson that pops in every 20 minutes to remind you it exists: the same odd interweaving of moody violins with Talkbox vocals à la Daft Punk, layering on the melodrama the longer it’s given to play. It’s closer to a documentary in this way, as in reality 90% of the time we don’t get a gentle musical score to resonate with the moment. If anything, the occasional radio playing in shops or the chimes of a vibrant town accompany us, just like the single score’s occasional presence.

Being so in touch with real situations that happen all the time in our world, the film places a conflict in front of us and compels us to solve it as if we were at the heart of it. This of course is handled brilliantly by Elín; she completely bodies the broken and guilt-ridden young woman who’s bursting at the seams with the emotions she must conceal. It’s a tough situation – akin to something out of a soap drama – and is one of the few instances where we’re made to wonder: Is telling the truth always the best way to go? Perhaps Una’s only phantom of a character development is her decision not to hand over the burden of her actions to someone else, who is better off mourning in peace without the sour taste of betrayal. When the Light Breaks is a very human film, and a breather for those morally conflicted; we’re often met with tough decisions, tough situations, in which neither choice we must make is a good one. Sometimes there’s just no right or wrong answer. 

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Written by Maddie Armstrong

Featured image courtesy of Cannes Film Festival