The Love That Remains

About

Anna, an artist, and Magnús, a fisherman, live with their three children and charismatic sheepdog in the quiet grandeur of the Icelandic countryside.

As the fractures in their marriage come to the surface, the couple try to hold onto the afterimages of a life together and make sense of a deep and lingering devotion. Filmmaker Hlynur Pálmason (Godland) brings surprising humor and emotional weight to this gorgeous, intimate, and brilliantly expansive scenes from a marriage, amidst the majestic backdrop of the changing seasons.

Hlynur Pálmason follows up his vast and elemental Godland with… a charming slice-of-life comedy drama about family life in the countryside. Well, The Love that Remains may be relatively gentle, but it is still set against a remarkable backdrop of glaciers, volcanos, and the Atlantic ocean, and scenes set on a fishing vessel revel in the contrast between grinding machinery and the occasional aquatic visitor.

Structurally unusual, the film is a collection of semi-contained episodes, across a year. While some dramatic tensions are left unresolved, and frequent slips into fantasy and dreams lead to further questions, this is a unique and lovely snapshot of a modern family.