Icelandic director Hlynur Pálmason returns to Cannes with his fourth feature, “The Love That Remains.” Following his Oscar-shortlisted “Godland,” many expected Pálmason to go bigger. Instead, he went personal.
“People tend to think you always need to go ‘bigger,’ but I’m not stimulated by that. It would make sense to maybe work in English; there are only 350,000 people in Iceland, which makes this language almost extinct. But I wanted to dive into the moment,” he explains.
“I needed to capture it all before it goes away, before the kids grow up and it’s too late. Life passes you by in the blink of an eye. It goes by so fast.”
Starring Saga Garðarsdóttir and Sverrir Guðnason, and Pálmason’s own children, Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir, Þorgils Hlynsson and Grímur Hlynsson, “The Love That Remains” takes a peek at a family that, despite the parents’ split, still cares for each other very much.
“It’s not about portraying some kind of ‘perfect family,’ because there’s nothing perfect in this world. People grow and sometimes they grow apart. We’re not always in balance. Instead of making it clear why they were separating or who was the ‘bad guy,’ I wanted it to be very open and real,” he tells Variety.
“I think I just wanted to make something about what we have, about what surrounds us or where we come from. So often, we don’t notice it until it’s taken away or we lose it somehow.”
Moving back to the place he grew up in also inspired him.
“A couple of years ago, we bought a camera. I would have it in the car and film what’s around me: things that weren’t preconceived or constructed. I wanted to capture fleeting moments that felt magical, like a golden sky. Or I would film my old studio being torn apart, watch the footage and then react to it. That’s how this narrative started growing.”
Later, surreal elements made their way into the tender story as well, including a revenge-thirsty rooster.
“I didn’t see that one coming — it’s like it wasn’t even my idea!” he laughs.
“The part of filmmaking I enjoy the most is getting lost inside the world we’re working on. Let’s say I’m exploring a relationship. Then I look at a rooster and hens, I start seeing more basic, even primitive patterns or I start seeing us as animals. I get surprised and hopefully, so does the audience. I like it when films have edge, and the reality is that the world is brutal,” he adds.
While his film brings comfort, his characters aren’t exactly oblivious to the world around them.
“You can’t ignore it completely. You know what’s going on, and that people are suffering so much. It does affect your work, but what are you supposed to do? What I can do is explore the most important things — the most important to me, as a human being, as a father,” he says.
“Tend to your garden, spend time with your children, create memories and enjoy what you have. See the beauty in life and in the mundane. If you get a feel-good sensation out of the film, that’s exactly what I wanted.”
The film also contains a star-is-born canine performance — “I hope my Fanta wins Palm Dog,” he jokes.
But feel-good only goes so far: as the Icelandic film industry continues to face budget cuts, making films like “The Love That Remains” becomes harder.
“I have no idea how we are going to go on,” he says.
“The last couple of years have been difficult. The fundamentals of our film industry have been so insecure and it’s very hard to develop something for a long time. The way I’ve been working is that I make a Danish film [Pálmason studied and lived in Denmark for 10 years] and then I make an Icelandic film. It’s the only way I can survive, and we’re not even making expensive films.”
On “The Love That Remains,” Pálmason — who also wrote and shot the film — joined forces with producers Anton Máni Svansson (Still Vivid) and Katrin Pors from Denmark’s Snowglobe. Poland’s New Europe Film Sales handles sales, continuing a relationship that began with his 2017 “Winter Brothers”.
“A lot of the filmmakers here in Iceland and Denmark and other places are struggling. You bleed with every project, but having this kind of financial uncertainty is just too much. It’s too heavy a burden. I really hope the Icelandic government can fix this, because this kind of uncertainty is bad for everyone. It’s also bad for business.”
Still, “you have to keep going,” just like Garðarsdóttir’s character in the film, desperately trying to generate interest in her art.
“As an artist, you fail and get up, and then you fail again, because you have this strange, burning passion for creating something. I’ve always been fascinated by it. It’s such a beautiful process.”
Hlynur Pálmason
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