17/02/2025 - BERLINALE 2025: Lucile Hadžihalilović offers up a sensual yet peculiar rendition of The Snow Queen, a blend of modern fairy tale and coming-of-age story

Lucile Hadžihalilović offers a charming, nuanced and deeply psychological blend of modern fairy tale and coming-of-age story, which hopes to cast a spell over the 75th Berlinale in order to walk away with its Golden Bear. In her fourth feature, The Ice Tower [+see also:
trailer
interview: Lucile Hadžihalilović
film profile], the French auteur delivers an idiosyncratic rendition of The Snow Queen, but instead of being a child-orientated story, it revolves around a teenage orphan, Jeanne (the effortlessly mesmerising Clara Pacini). She escapes from her foster home and ends up in a small town. Having nowhere to go, she sneaks into a soundstage, where a film crew is working on an adaptation of the aforementioned famous Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale. Jeanne, who introduces herself as Bianca (a name she has borrowed after a brief encounter with an impressive stranger), secures a role as an extra and catches the eye of the capricious and temperamental Christine (Marion Cotillard), who is playing the lead.

The interest and attraction are mutual: Jeanne/Bianca projects dreams and desires onto this icy diva – she casts her as a stand-in for her mother, an idol and, first and foremost, a tentative object of erotic fascination. At the same time, it seems that Christine isn’t only playing the part of the Snow Queen; rather, she is her modern-day incarnation, with a shiny crystal instead of a mirror.

Just like in her previous works, in her new oeuvre, Hadžihalilović also blends realistic and dreamlike atmospheres, tones and styles. It is an effective cinematic representation of many young girls’ experiences: a semi-erotic fascination with slightly older women and a subconscious awareness that a male presence can be threatening. Hadžihalilović perfectly pinpoints the ambiguity of female coming of age, along with all of its attendant promises and perils.

Additionally, The Ice Tower is a self-referential film; cinema has become an heir to fairy tales, a magical device that creates dreams, and characters of queens and monsters alike. Christine is an amalgam of the golden-era Hollywood film stars who had to – metaphorically speaking – freeze as a perfect image of someone who was larger than life, but who emanated a light that was not real, but rather fabricated by the cinematography department. Thus, the story and the themes offer an idiosyncratic yet disciplined reflection on the creation of idols and dissect the reasons for mutual attraction – which are usually rooted in early childhood memories.

The peculiar world and imagery created by Hadžihalilović do not constitute a mainstream offering, and nor does the film try to be. Audiences unfamiliar with the director’s previous work may think it lacks a more conventional storytelling style, but those who are open to singularity and uniqueness should have their cinematic appetites satisfied. The Ice Tower is consistent, luscious and cerebral – and it won’t melt easily under the harsh eye of a film critic.

The Ice Tower is a French-German film produced by Paris-based outfit 3B Productions, and co-produced by Davis Films, Sutor Kolonko, Arte France and Bayerischer Rundfunk. Goodfellas handles its international sales.

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Photogallery 17/02/2025: Berlinale 2025 - The Ice Tower

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