When the Light Breaks

Occasionally, though not often, a film evokes the sensation of being nothing more than a moving painting – crafted not with bristles but with lenses. Icelandic director Rúnar Rúnarsson’s fourth feature embodies this feeling, resembling breathtaking sunset paintings such as those of Camille Pissarro and William Turner. From the opening frame to the final shot, both mirroring each other in a circular closure, the film maintains this delicate, painterly quality. Being shot on 16mm, the grainy look of the moving images is enhanced and the impression of seeing brushstrokes on canvas mesmerizes the viewer as the sequences unfold.

The anglophone title When the Light Breaks succeeds indeed in capturing the essence of the film, but the original Icelandic title Ljósbrot fully conveys the core of the film in a more direct and poetic way, using a compound word. In fact, Ljósbrot translates as "refraction" in English and is the union of ljós (light) and brot (break, fracture, or refraction). In particular, it refers to the bending of light as it passes through different mediums, such as from air to water. Beyond its visual significance the concept also, when read figuratively, extends to the film’s deeper meaning: the light breaks just as the story’s key event unfolds.

When the Light Breaks has a very simple set up and a short running time of 78 minutes. [This paragraph can be skipped for the ones who are strict against any sort of spoilers] Una (Elín Hall) and Diddi (Baldur Einarsson) are having an affair while the latter is officially dating Klara (Katla Njálsdóttir). One day, Diddi is caught in a multivehicle accident inside a tunnel, where a fire cuts short the life of the teenager. The tragedy, a national one as it involves a high number of people, sparks an inner conflict in Una, who finds herself trying to cope with the loss while hiding her secret love – especially in her conversation with Gunni (Mikael Kaaber), her closest friend in the group. Una’s inner conflicts explode when Klara visits them and is comforted by the whole circle of friends as the grieving girlfriend. 

The film is an ode to silences, to the soft and delicate moments of recollection by the characters who, despite being very young, act extremely maturely for their age, even in their deepest moments of despair. Maybe the sudden death of one of them is exactly the reason they feel compelled and perhaps forced to become adults? Or is it simply that Rúnarsson’s characters tend to have an inherent introspection which leads them to such well-thought discussions? The interesting element about their speeches is that they are simultaneously simple yet very deep, without at any point sounding staged. In this simplicity so tightly linked to deep themes such as death, growth and grief, When the Light Breaks comes close to the style of Japanese writer Banana Yoshimoto, whose books are mostly very short with daily yet dense dialogues and introspections.

Everything in Rúnarsson’s film feels like a love letter to a personal and intimate look at cinema, one that is stripped of all unnecessary things and goes back to its primordial elements: performances and scenographies (which also involve the stunning photography by Sophia Olsson) almost as if it was a theatre play. Just as Iceland is the country of geysers that intermittently erupt after quiet moments of dormancy, of stasis, Uma’s feelings seem to be constantly seeking a way to come out, despite the circumstances not allowing it. Elín Hall, whose peculiar and beautiful traits fit perfectly with her character, at the same time both decisive and hesitant, is able to handle the difficulty of the performance. Overall, the raw acting coming from the whole cast is what allows the film to be so effective in its simplicity. The script was a good starting point, but it could have easily been affected by weak deliveries or forced expressions. Thanks to the familiar feeling created by the set design, we as viewers constantly feel comfortably “inside” the story and the actors feel like a group of people that we may know, instead of distant and unreachable movie stars living in a plastic world.

With Rúnarsson, Icelandic cinema has indeed found one of its most authoritative contemporary voices, ever since his feature debut with Volcano in 2011. In his previous film, which is his second shortest after Echo (2019) which had a running time of only 78 minutes, what arises most prominently is his ability to enhance the power of the story without diluting it, a capability unfortunately lacking in far too many directors. Rúnarsson keeps proving that having a firm hand on the subject is key. This confidence probably comes from his long and rich career, built solidly on short films. Renowned as the most awarded short film director in the world, he has won more than 90 awards, just with this format. Short films all rely on a handful of elements that can make all the difference between a success and a failure, while feature films can potentially survive thanks to all the surrounding elements that time allows them to use as a cover for the lack of real content.

When the Light Breaks is perfectly crafted and suitable for all audiences, from the more experienced, or perhaps we could say more “cinephilic”, viewers to the mainstream ones. That is something to be sought after and is all too often forgotten in the too-sharp cut separation between festival films and streaming-platform friendly films.