Film

L'Iceberg (2005)

Director: Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon, Bruno Romy

Movie review

From Time Out Chicago

Cute but toothless, this live-action cartoon from Belgium stars unconventional beauty Gordon as the manager of a suburban fast-food restaurant who’s closing up shop one night when she accidentally locks herself in the walk-in freezer. She’s nearly frozen to death, but her deeper injury stems from the fact that her absence went unnoticed by her husband (Abel) and two children. Her suppressed rage manifests as a fetish for polar landscapes, and before long she runs away to a cute fishing village, where a taciturn fisherman (Martz) consents to take her north on his boat to find the iceberg of her dreams. Meanwhile, her repentant husband launches a desperate campaign to find her and woo her back.

A toylike production with little dialogue and a visual scheme that leans heavily on bright primary colors, L’Iceberg is clearly intended to evoke comparisons to the brilliant films of Jacques Tati. Here, then, is ours: It’s not even a teeny, tiny fraction as good as even the least of Tati’s films. Neither, to be scrupulously fair, is it actively annoying. It just sort of does its twee thing for a while and then goes away. No harm, no foul.