Review: Skinless « When the light is broken » takes on love grief

Light red eyelashes and pale blue eyes against a bleeding sunset. The vulnerability is monumental in picture, tone and faces in Icelander Runar Rúnarsson’s acclaimed elegation about young love, young death and young grief. All under an overly light sky, in an overly open landscape, far, far out in the sea.

Una (Élin Hall) is a thin, light art student in snagged hair and men’s clothing that can teach people to fly with thought power. Una loves Diddi, with whom she plays in bands and shares a joint on the beach in the opening scene. Their future will just start, for the next morning he will fly and end with his girlfriend since his teens and then will abandon and he travel, love, maybe have children.

But while Una sleeps out in his student room, hundreds of motorists drive towards her death in a burning highway tunnel in an endless suggestive scene elevated by gospel -choir. Not until a mutual friend shows up at her school the next day does she understand that Diddi has taken the car instead of flying.

There is nowhere to hide. The townhouse where the friend’s gang shakes off the pain has perspective windows. The large crisis center where troubled relatives gather with the Red Cross staff and police have glazed walls straight out towards the endless sea. Una tries to keep her despair hidden in all openness.

Her official status is « band member » and when Klara, Didi’s recognized girlfriend, joins the grieving crowd, she has a patent on the great grief (Katla Njálsdóttir is magnificent in the role). But she is not an idiot and una is far too beautiful and far too unhappy that she has no idea how it is. In a reflection, their faces flow together in a way that is probably magical if you have not seen « persona », because then it becomes a bit silly.

We see the emotions, but we have barely got to know the dead and have been too little with the lovers to know them

It’s Sophia Olsson’s photo, a subtle music and sound image together with the skinless acting that carries the film. Emotions are expressed without words. Instead, the scarce dialogue is spent on telling other things, giving contexts and perspectives on who they are.

It’s elegant, but something is missing. Maybe contrasts? The film sometimes becomes as boundless and planless as the pictures. We see the emotions, but we have hardly come to know the dead and have been too little with the lovers to know them. Hall’s little triangular, bright face is indeed enchanting « modern », but may carry far too much of the film’s drama. In the end it becomes like a long, stylish music video and you just wait for her to start singing.

See more. Three other Icelandic films: « Among men and sheep » (2018), « Lamm » (2021), « Godland » (2023).

Read more Film and TV reviews in DN and more texts of Kerstin Gezelius