19/02/2025 - BERLINALE 2025: The French director talks about the symbolism of The Snow Queen as well as opening up about female idols from her own youth

(© Dario Caruso/Cineuropa)

Cineuropa sat down with Lucile Hadžihalilović, who is both a co-writer and the director of the Berlinale competition film The Ice Tower [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Lucile Hadžihalilović
film profile]. The French artist breaks down her movie for us and talks about the symbolism of The Snow Queen as well as opening up about female idols from her own youth.

Cineuropa: You say that all of your films are like fairy tales, and this one is a reinterpretation of The Snow Queen. Why did you choose this one specifically to work with?
Lucile Hadžihalilović: First of all, I like the fact that a girl was a protagonist in Hans Christian Andersen’s story. It was a girl who began a journey to save the boy, and usually, it’s the other way around in fairy tales. I was also interested in the figure of the Snow Queen and what she could be. Initially, when I was writing the script and making the film, I wasn’t sure about who she was. Then, it became more obvious to me. I wanted her to be both a real woman and an archetypical figure – maybe that of a mother, or even death. I was interested in the encounter between a girl and the Snow Queen, so that was one of the main reasons. Another one was that the girl is proactive, but clumsy and innocent, too. She is also creating her own reality of who the Snow Queen really is, and what really happens. The film that is being shot in my movie could also be the girl’s dream.

The girl – Jeanne or Bianca, as she introduces herself – is at an age when girls sometimes look up to older women and want to be like them. There is a semi-erotic attraction between her and the film star, Cristina, who is playing the Snow Queen.
I think it's a classical story of a teenager who is now old enough to think that she can discover the milieu of adults and the world itself. She was raised in a tiny village in the mountains, so she lived in a cocoon, in a way – even if she has no real parents. The story is a mirror between two women. Cristina is a fascinating figure reflecting what a woman could be – both as a beautiful actress and as the striking figure of the Snow Queen. But on the other hand, Cristina sees herself in Jeanne, when she was her age. Both women are at a specific moment in their lives. Things begin to crumble for Cristina, as her madness has taken over; Jeanne is the opposite. They are both at some kind of crossroads, and they both recognise themselves in one another.

Cristina is a film star, and Jeanne idolises her. I also see your film as a cautionary tale – be careful who you pick to be your hero. Did you have this question in mind?
Yes, but somehow, I think Jeanne really sees this star also as a woman who is suffering, unlike Cristina’s team, who don’t notice that. They just think, “Oh, she’s complicated.” Jeanne sees it, and that’s also what attracts her to Cristina. But how can a girl deal with the degree of suffering or the wounds that this woman has? Maybe this also shows Jeanne that she can't become that type of woman, because there is suffering in her, a type of self-destruction and the destruction of others. At the end, she says “no” to Cristina – twice, in fact.

Did you have any women whom you idolised when you were Jeanne's age?
When I began to go to the cinema by myself as a teenager, I saw many giallo films because it was a time when this genre was popular. What attracted me to these movies was also the beauty and the glamour of the female characters – even if they did end up being killed. They were very seductive, until I realised how fake or how distorted it all was, and that they had been made to be that way on purpose. I also remember posters from that time with David Hamilton’s photos. I think all teenage girls had them back then. These images were normal to us; we didn’t question what was beyond the camera. We only saw beautiful young girls, and we thought that this was how we would like to be – perfect and graceful. So, in my case, it was not a specific actress or character [who was my idol]; it was more of a model or a type. I could identify more with some writers.

Like Susan Sontag?
I was looking for emotions more than intellectual content, and I related more closely to fiction than essays. I was more into writers who wrote strange, complex stories about young people.