The Love That Remains

Saga Garoarsdóttir

Hlynur Pálmason's The Love That Remains strikes me as one of the more original and impressive pictures I've seen this year. The film repeats the man as a single grain of sand vibe explored in Godland, but adds a depth of characterization that lifts this work to a higher plateau. The film is ostensibly focused on the ongoing separation between artist Anna (Saga Garoarsdóttir) and her mismatched mate, Magnús (Sverrir Guonason). The pair share a teenage daughter named Ida and a set of ten year old twins. Magnús has not quite processed that Anna has given him the heave-ho. He slinks into his former household like a wary sheepdog and is usually graced a meal or a beer. However, he cannot reignite a spark with Anna who is clearly bored and irritated by her more simplistic spouse.

Magnús works on a fishing trawler. He is gone for weeks at a time as it is herring season and is bored and down in the dumps. The fish harvesting sequences alone would make this worth seeing, but The Love That Remains contains multiple strains and themes. Anna is an artist who weathers her work. Not in a random way, but deliberately so that it is infused with the elements of Iceland. The film traces the arc of the seasons from spring to winter. The fractured family joins together to pick wild berries and forage mushrooms. Among Ann's art pieces left out in the open is a Joan of Arc figure affixed to a stake. Her children use the figure for archery target practice, but the figure also stands in contrast to the ever changing face of natural Iceland. Ann's work grounds her to her land. In contrast, Magnús ends the film, literally, at sea.

Pálmason punctuates his narrative with surrealistic asides that amplify the film's themes. Some of these are dropped matter of factly. Some with flashy effects like split screens and whip pans. However, Pálmason never allows his film to be overcome with effects and uses them judiciously. Most of the surreal moments display an aptly unconscious tug. The exception is Magnús' dream of himself being menaced by a giant rooster. This is in response to his having killed a misbehaving cock at Ann's request. The dream is a too literal illustration of guilt, but it pays off when Ida tells off Magnús because of this foul deed and his subservience to his ex. The killing was played for laughs, at Magnús' ineptitude, but it hinges on one of the film's central themes: Are we instinctual beasts preying upon each other or can we deny or self-interest for the common good? The film's humor is predicated on the unease with which we regard out ambivalent state. There are no easy answers or good guys or bad guys in the film.

Ida's animal rights stance and the children's overall attitude towards sex and violence signals another of the film's themes: shifts in generational perspectives. The arrows into Joan of Arc and the recovery of World War 2 mines show that violence is an ever present reality even in peaceable Iceland. Ambivalence, the hallmark of maturity, is in evidence even in the film's appreciation of ugliness and beauty. Even the spectre and reality of death has its strange beauty in The Love That Remains. Brilliantly acted and memorably filmed, this is surely one of the best features released in the US in 2026.