Tuesday 27 December 2022

Arctic (Joe Penna, 2018)


Without any preamble, we're with Mads Mikkelsen next to a crashed plane, surrounded by ice and snow. Most of what follows is without dialogue, just agonised grunting and panting as he goes through all means possible to feed himself and try to work out a way to contact civilisation, even after dragging a badly injured woman from a helicopter that crashes while responding to his distress beacon. The scenario is as bleak and unhistrionic as its setting, and while it certainly doesn't require artful writing and accordingly provides no great insights into the human condition as such, it does succeed in utterly immersing the viewer in the unforgiving situation, helped a great deal by Mikkelsen's determined command of the screen, not unlike Robert Redford's in the very similar set-up of 2013's All Is Lost.

6/10  

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