Arctic (Review)
Arctic Proves the Old Saying, “Survival of the Fittest.”
Let’s kick off this review of Arctic by getting straight to the point, it’s one of the best survival movies ever made. Of course, that means that it’s not an easy movie to watch in a lot of instances due to the nature of the genre. However, if there’s one man who can pull off suffering in silence it’s Mads Mikkelsen. His stoicism speaks volumes supplementing the few words he actually utters over the course of Arctic, making him perfectly cast for a film that chooses to show rather than tell.
The entire film rests steadily on his shoulders as he tells the tale of a pilot who crash-landed in the Arctic and has spent god knows how long surviving the vicious landscape in hopes of being rescued. His life is a simple one as he adopts a regimented routine in order to keep his sanity and maintain hope of rescue. However, a fateful event in which he is nearly rescued propels him to take action in order to save the life of a woman he doesn’t even know (Maria Thelma Smáradóttir). What happens next is an inspiring tale of an indomitable spirit who takes on a selfless act despite the very risks it poses to his own survival.
Arctic is awe-inspiring in more ways than one. Of course, it would be impossible to talk about a movie set in one of the harshest and unforgiving environments in the world without talking about how beautiful it is at the same time. Much like 2017’s Wind River, first-time feature director Joe Penna and cinematographer Tómas Örn Tómasson choose to embrace the harsh beauty of the world Mikkelsen finds himself trapped in. The film is filled with shots of mountains, windswept valleys and even inspiring glimpses of tenacious plant life that springs forth where no life seems possible. This approach is crucial to the story though because it contradicts the seemingly hopeless situation of the hero. He could literally die at any moment just from being out in the wind for too long and yet there is beauty all around him. Still, even in all this the wide shots only prove just how isolated and alone he is as he makes his way across a landscape where humans are quite obviously unwelcomed by mother nature.
To say that Mikkelsen’s character Overgård is a man of few words would be an understatement. If I were to guess he probably utters a total of 2 minutes of dialogue over the entirety of the film, choosing rather to express his emotions and inner thoughts through his actions and gestures. A bold choice, but one that pays off tremendously in the end. Mikkelsen doesn’t need to say out loud what he’s thinking, because he makes it perfectly clear as he struggles to survive. When he does choose to talk, most of his lines are ones that speak to his unbending spirit and odd sense of optimism. Lines like “Don’t worry, they’ll come tomorrow” or “it’s ok. We’ll take a better way,” are spoken as more for his own sake than for his newfound unconscious comrade he’s risking everything to save. This highlights the underlying theme of the film that sometimes it’s easier to risk everything for someone else than for yourself.
Arctic is not one of those over the top survival movies where people fall from cliffs repeatedly or survive alligator infested waters. Instead, it’s a movie that is firmly grounded in reality for the most part. Of course, it wouldn’t be a movie about the Arctic without a polar bear or two, but even while the encounters with the creatures are jarring and intense, they’re not unreasonable. Rather than fighting the creature to the death, Mikkelsen tries to scare it away and simply avoids them at all cost after that. Don’t get me wrong though, there are still some truly gut-wrenching scenes, especially as we see the slow and yet brutal toll that the extreme cold takes on him during his journey. Like any good survival movie, Arctic is not easy to watch but is still incredibly inspiring.
I would honestly go so far as to say that Arctic is probably the most beautiful movie of 2019 (so far). It’s inspiring in all the right ways and features a hero who doesn’t need a lot of backstories to reveal who he is. Instead, we stumble upon him long after he’s been lost and get to know who he is through his actions not through his past. Because of this, it’s easy to see him as the hero he is. True, he might not have much of an inner journey, but that’s because the external one he’s on is so incredible. For me, Arctic was a perfect pallet cleanser before the action-packed blockbusters of 2019 start hitting theaters over the next few months. If you’re a fellow cinephile than I wholeheartedly recommend you check out this film as well.
