Arctic (2019) - Movie Review

Maybe it’s because of my own origins as a YouTuber, but I always get a kick out of seeing someone from that sector of the Internet making it onto the big screen. It doesn’t always turn out for the best, and there’s definitely something to be said about YouTube stars getting brought into productions just for name value, but as someone who has also been trying to turn my extended hobby into something legitimate (stop laughing), it fills me with a sense of comradery. And this film is part of that legacy, coming from writer/director Joe Penna, AKA MysteryGuitarMan, one of the old guard of the YouTube scene and someone who has been chipping away at the short film grindstone for a while now. His feature-length debut, if nothing else, shows him as a cinematic creative who knows his shit.

For the second Mads Mikkelsen movie I’ve reviewed this month with an ice-themed name, I’m more than thankful that this serves as a far better showcase for the man’s talents. There is very little dialogue, or even monologue, to be found here, and the only other actor in Maria Thelma Smáradóttir spends most of the film unconscious; he needs to carry this film all on his own, and hot damn, does he manage to do just that.

He undeniably sells the physicality of the role, and you can definitely see why he considers this to be the most difficult shooting experience of his entire career to date, but he also manages to imbue all the little moments with incredible emotionality. Whether it’s his frustration at trying to pull another human being up a steep hill on a sled, his hardened determination to survive in the Arctic desert, or just his quiet elation at being able to taste a cup of (raw) noodles again, he makes his place as the one who must brave the wilderness into a role that the audience can latch onto instantly.

From there, Penna, cinematographer Tómas Örn Tómasson and editor Ryan Morrison (who also co-wrote the film) finds themselves with a rather sizeable challenge on their hands. This could just be my take-it-or-leave-it stance on the survival genre at large, but being able to make a perpetually white and snowy void interesting to look at for an hour and a half isn’t the easiest of things.

The visuals make great use of the natural stillness of the landscape, and with how said landscape includes ice caves, fishing spots, cliffs and even a sequence straight out of 127 Hours, it varies things up just enough to keep it interesting. This is also aided by the pacing, which is nice and brisk, allowing everything from the establishing shots to the aforementioned smaller moments to make their case but not stick around for too long.

On the more thematic side of things, man vs. nature yarns tend to emphasise the odds stacked up against the main characters. Everything from weather to navigation to the wildlife pose a threat to the leads, and the core engagement comes out of seeing them overcome those odds. However, this film’s tact is a little different in how it approaches the main aspect of surviving. Mikkelsen’s Overgård is left stranded in the Arctic, forced to fend for himself, but once Smáradóttir enters the picture, his need for self-preservation turns into an almost-paternal need to protect others.

The idea of survivors needing to eat each other in order to make it is a cliché of the genre, highlighting how in the face of certain death, the need to preserve the life of others takes second place to preserving one’s own. But here, because he knows how treacherous this terrain is and because he knows what the woman has lost already in the crash that brought her there, he never entertains the thought of going full Alferd Packer or even abandoning her. It’s a showing of silent empathy and compassion that, even with the lack of pointed dialogue, makes the raw humanity at the story’s centre quite affecting.

I’ll admit again that I’m not the biggest fan of these types of movies, as I tend to consider survival as more of a thematic addition to a story rather than serving as the whole, but even that can’t make me fail to recognise the finesse put into this production. Mikkelsen carries the film very nicely, making for a good reminder that he can shine when given the right material, and he gives this frozen survival yarn the right empathetic touch to make for a good watch. And since Joe Penna is already working on his next production, which looks to be a sci-fi space thriller, I’m definitely looking forward to where this guy’s gonna go next.