La Tour de glace / The Ice Tower (opening screening, in person: In person: Whitney Ward, Joe Coleman, Jason Diamond, Scott Gracheff, Vincent Grashaw, Lewis Teague, Can Evrenol, Bruno Forzani)

 

Lucile Hadžihalilović: La Tour de glace / The Ice Tower (FR/DE/IT 2025). Marion Cotillard as Cristina in her role as the Snow Queen.

Guests of honour lineup at the opening screening of Night Visions Maximum Halloween 3025, 19 Nov 2025. Whitney Ward, Joe Coleman, Jason Diamond, Scott Gracheff, Vincent Grashaw, Lewis Teague, Can Evrenol, Bruno Forzani, Mikko Aromaa. Photographer to the right: Juho Liukkonen. Photo: Tanja Ryhänen / Night Visions.

Country and year: France / Germany / Italy 2025

Producer(s): Muriel Merlin, Harald Steinwender

Director: Lucile Hadžihalilović

Writer: Geoff Cox, Lucile Hadžihalilović

Cinematographer: Jonathan Ricquebourg

Music: Olivier Messiaen

Cast: Marion Cotillard, Clara Pacini, August Diehl, Gaspar Noé, Marine Gesbert, Lila-Rose Gilberti, Valentina Vezzoso

Duration: 117 min

Language: French

Subtitles: English: Ian Burley & Sophia T... [the names flashed by too fast]

Format: DCP

Night Visions (NV) Maximum Halloween 3025

Opening screening hosted by Mikko Aromaa.

In person: Whitney Ward, Joe Coleman, Jason Diamond, Scott Gracheff, Vincent Grashaw, Lewis Teague, Can Evrenol, Bruno Forzani.

Viewed at Kinopalatsi 1, Helsinki, 19 Nov 2025

NV 2025: "Hans Christian Andersenin Lumikuningattaresta versovassa The Ice Towerissa satu ja tosi sekoittuvat valveuneksi, josta David Lynch olisi kateellinen. Oman tyylinsä täydellistäneen auteur-ohjaaja Lucile Hadžihalilovićin suurteos on kuin eurooppalainen Mulholland Drive, kuvaus haaveiden ja pelkojen risteyksestä, jossa näkymä voi muuttua silmänräpäyksessä.  

Hadžihalilovićin elokuvat ovat mystiikkaan kiedottuja kasvukuvauksia. Berliinin festivaalin pääkilpasarjassa maailmanensi-iltansa saanut uutuus seuraa Innocencen (2004), Evolutionin (2015) ja Earwigin (2021) jälkiä, mutta astuu askeleen pidemmälle synkän fantasian maailmaan.

Äitinsä traagisesti menettänyt teinityttö Jeanne (Clara Pacini) ottaa hatkat sijaisperheestä, vaeltaa alppimaisemien halki kaupunkiin ja löytää lymypaikan studiohallista. Piilostaan hän näkee lapsuutensa suosikkisadun, Lumikuningattaren, muuntuvan elokuvaksi. Pääosanesittäjä Cristinan (Marion Cotillard) kylmä karisma lumoaa tytön, ja tähtinäyttelijä ottaa karkulaisen suojatikseen.

Hadžihalilović rakentaa symbolien tornia, jonka ytimessä on kysymys siitä, onko äitien sydämessä jäätä vai lämpöä. Unen sävyt nousevat upeasti rakennetusta elokuvanteon kuvauksesta. Jeannen kävellessä öisissä lavasteissa pienoismallien keskellä suruun sekoittuu taikapölyä. Huikean debyytin tekevä Pacini tuo hahmoonsa haavoittuvaisuutta. Cotillard loistaa elämää suurempana mysteerinä." (NV 2025)

NV 2025 QUOTATION MONTAGE:

★★★★★

“A fairytale of death-wish yearning and erotic submission”

– Peter Bradshaw / The Guardian

★★★★½

“[Marion] Cotillard is at her very best”

– Jennie Kermode / Eye For Film

“Frozen meets Mulholland Drive”

– Jordan Mintzer / The Hollywood Reporter

“Casts a creepy spell that lingers and even deepens in the mind long after it’s over. As only the best spells do.”

– Ryan Lattanzio / IndieWire

“Mesmerizing — Infused with a lot of psychosexual energy”

– Elisa Guimarães / Collider 

“Countless adaptations and appropriations – among them Disney’s Frozen – have diluted the sheer weirdness of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Snow Queen, a tale of good and evil that is also one young girl’s investigative quest for a missing boyfriend who has come under the influence of an older woman. In her ravishingly shot fourth feature, set in the mid 1970s, Lucile Hadzihalilovic takes the boy out of the picture. Told through the allusive frame of a female teenage runaway’s encounter with a movie star diva played by Marion Cotillard, who is shooting a new version of The Snow Queen, this is a story of womanhood at a crossroads: its two characters somehow become one, a before and an after, slowly circling, testing, and taking stock of one another.”

– Lee Marshall / Screen International – NV 2025 QUOTATION MONTAGE

AA: Lucile Hadžihalilović's The Ice Tower is scheduled at the Night Visions film festival on the same day as the Danish Adorable Humans. Both have been inspired by H. C. Andersen: the Danish movie by four fairy-tales, including The Snow Queen (Sneedronningen, 1844, Andersen op. 68), and The Ice Tower by the same tale plus The Red Shoes (De røde Skoe, 1845, Andersen op. 72), also directly referred to in the movie poster of the film adaptation by Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger (The Red Shoes, GB 1948).

The Snow Queen has inspired a lot of art and adaptation. Hadžihalilović's interpretation is new and original.

It is a work of visionary poetry, enchanting in its cinematography and soundscape. With a gentle and assured approach Hadžihalilović enters the world of the young orphan and outcast Jeanne who is fascinated by the world of art, the stage, the spectacle and the fairy-tale. Ultimately, it is a quest for a home that she has never had.

The Ice Tower is a voyage in transcendental homelessness. Cristina, the Ice Queen, appears like a long needed mother figure for Jeanne, but this turns out to be a misunderstanding.

Clara Pacini as Jeanne and Marion Cotillard create unforgettable studies of solitude. Hadžihalilović is full of love to her broken and erratic characters. Something in this makes me think about A Place in the Sun.

Jonathan Ricquebourg is in charge of the haunting cinematography on the Alps. Olivier Messiaens's devout compositions enchant us on the soundtrack.