The Love that Remains showcases Pálmason’s stunning visual talent once more. Still, this time, there is a playfulness to his artistry, with the performances as natural as the Icelandic water surrounding them.
Frustrating yet enchanting and painful yet quirky, nobody could accuse Hlynur Pálmason of not pushing the boundaries of film, photography and storytelling in The Love That Remains. From Godland to A White, White Day, Pálmason has offered us some of the most stunning, bleak, and visionary films of the past decade. The Love That Remains may take a different path from the previous films, but it remains unmistakably Pálmason.
This alluring yet distant portrait of a fractured, broken, yet loving family isn’t interested in offering a linear story or melodrama; instead, it focuses on the individuals, moments, and memories at its heart as the seasons turn and relationships change. In Pálmason’s almost dreamlike world, fantasy meets reality, and emotional pain dovetails with joy, laughter, and tenderness as we follow Maggi (Sverrir Gudnason), a fisherman, his separated artist wife Anna (Saga Garðarsdóttir), and their three children from an Icelandic spring to summer and winter and back again.
The Love that Remains showcases Pálmason’s stunning visual talent once more. Still, this time, there is a playfulness to his artistry, with the performances as natural as the Icelandic water surrounding them. Emotions are stifled in favour of peace, as themes of loneliness sit at the heart of the journey. Maggi attempts to do the right thing, despite the separation, while Anna tolerates his presence but longs for escape. There is a love that remains, but Pálmason is far more interested in the loneliness that weaves between that remaining love in crafting this visually stunning, obscure yet enthralling work of art.
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