L’Iceberg
(Unrated, 84 Min., Belgium, in French with English Subtitles, Comedy/Drama)
Feb. 17 & 18 at 7:00
Synopsis:
Fiona is the manager of a fast-food restaurant. She lives with her family in the suburbs. In a few words, Fiona is happy. Until one day…Fiona gets accidentally locked into a walk-in fridge while closing up. She gets out in the morning, half frozen and barely alive, only to realize that her husband and two children didn’t even notice she was missing. Little by little, Fiona develops an obsession for everything cold and icy: snow, polar bears, fridges, icebergs… and one day she drops everything, climbs into a frozen goods delivery truck and leaves home. She wants to see a real iceberg.
Who has never dreamt of dropping everything and starting over, of making a wish come true or of just going somewhere else to see what it’s like from there? Fiona takes the plunge, unsettling the lives of those around her as she goes. The three main characters of the film aren’t born adventurers. They are anti-heroes who get inadvertently involved in an adventure. Tripping over their clumsy mistakes, they never give up, always ready to renew the search for happiness and success.
THE ICEBERG is about our day-to-day heroism, our naivety, our fundamental desire for love and accomplishment. It’s about all the obstacles and minor failures that dent our optimism, but never destroy it all together.
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Praise for L’ICEBERG:
“Thumbs up, up and away. A magnificently choreographed piece of work.” -David Edelstein, Ebert and Roeper at the Movies
“Deadpan on Ice! …Earns two adjectives that rarely go together: breezy and bold…Its simultaneously silly and grave tone finds humor in the characters’ delusions and obsessions while celebrating their uniqueness.” -New York Times
“Iceberg is a movie to capture the imagination and take the viewer back to simpler, childlike times. See it with an open mind and be ready to giggle.” -IO Film (UK)
“It is to die and go to heaven—or at least the North Pole—for…plays like a circusy hallucination on Ibsen’s A Doll’s House addled with Close Encounters of the Third Kind…the most lyrical spasticity in modern movies.” -New York Magazine
“The Iceberg is a riot, a quintessential French comedy with an improbable plot and an unbelievable cast of characters…The Iceberg is quirky, fun and ultimately lovable.” -Miami Herald
“Try not to avoid this ‘Iceberg’! …A cool way to take your mind off climate change…Gordon and Abel (are) howls as husband and wife…Keaton would approve.” -New York Post
“Sly, winsome tale … Gordon, Abel and Martz take their cues from just about every silent comedy great… the film’s deliberate color palette and tightly choreographed, perfectly timed sequences recall Jacques Tati. But there’s an irreverent, off-center humor here that’s distinctly their own.” -TV Guide
“Belgium’s lovely L’Iceberg combines physical comedy with visual poetry for cinema of sublime humor, beauty and melancholy…funny, exquisite, spontaneous.” -Boxoffice Magazine
“Chaming…worthy of Jacques Tati or Frank Tashlin.” – Onion AV Club
“A strange and ultimately fascinating blend of old-time moviemaking and modern performance art, told almost entirely without words. … there’s still a lot of wild visual style here, and not a few laughs. And that’s a treat in any language.” -NJ Star Ledger
“Reminiscent of Jacques Tati… the three leads, all experienced stage performers, tackle their roles with grace and enthusiasm.” -Time Out New York
“Alternately impossibly agile and glumly immobile, Ms. Gordon’s character comes across like a cross between Chaplain’s Tramp, Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh, and Olive Oyl. Mr. Abel is equally deadpan and physically expressive.” -NY Sun
“Tati by way of Wes Anderson.” -Village Voice
“Not since René Clair and Jacques Tati have gags been so expertly constructed or characters looked more mournful than in Iceberg, a tasty concoction with equal measures of poetic fantasy and slapstick comedy.” -MOMA New Directors/New Films Series
“More than welcome breath of fresh air… joyous cinematic expression. Hilarious!” -Slant Magazine
“Uniquely and imaginatively crafted, expressing perhaps more through the joys, sorrows and passions evoked by body movements and rhythms, along with meaningful silences, than contained within the possibilities of language.” -WBAI
“Eccentric comedy… … delightful.” -Spirituality and Health
“Charming, always visually engaging and endlessly inventive.” -News Blaze
“Endearing, Brilliant…(Fiona Gordon’s) mostly silent performance never ceases to elicit wonder.” – About.com
“Enchanting, morose yet hysterical…has a hysterically dry sense of humor and a finely tuned sense of physicality. It’s exactly the kind of film that you don’t normally see in your neighborhood multiplex.” -Fresno Bee
Hope to see you all there!