Arctic  ★★★★

YOU can feel the Icelandic thriller Arctic in your bones.

In his debut feature film, Brazillian director Joe Penna does a brilliant job of putting us in the shoes of a plane crash survivor stranded in a snow-bound wasteland.

There is skill and attention in the deliberate framing and pacing of every scene, from the depictions of seemingly small tasks that require herculean efforts to overcome the elements to the quieter moments of reflection that demonstrate the survivor’s complete isolation and remote possibility of rescue.

Penna is aided by the always compelling Mads Mikkelsen giving one of his best performances in the title role of a man we only know as Overgard, based on the name sewn on his flight suit.

Eschewing conventions, Penna starts his film with Overgard already in survival mode. We have no idea who he is or how he got there, but the beauty of the film and has it unfolds is that those details never matter. The audience’s focus is fully on how he is going to survive.

So we immediately join Overgard in a routine that includes the checking of fishing lines bored through the ice and operating a hand-wound signal system in the hope of alerting a plane that might happen to pass nearby, all within a strictly-timed regime that controls the efforts required and exposure to the elements.

From the outset we know that Overgard has strong survival skills, sound judgement and clear determination. This only makes the struggles he confronts all the more realistic for an everyday audience, many of whom would be far less equipped, physically and mentally, to face the obstacles he must overcome.

Overgard’s situation moves to a new and even riskier level when he is forced to decide whether to stay within the relative safety and shelter of the plane wreckage or take his chances heading into the elements in the hope of getting closer to some form of civilisation and increasing his chances of rescue.

It’s at this stage that Mikkelsen’s performance also moves to another level, with the Danish actor put through a series of physical tasks and emotional choices that take his character closer to breaking point and surrender to the power of the elements and extent of human ability.

This is Mikkelsen’s best film performance since 2012 when The Hunt and A Royal Affair brought him to wide attention. His take on serial killer Hannibal Lecter in the television series Hannibal is also fascinating.

Arctic is a compelling survival thriller, perhaps one of the best I’ve seen.

Arctic is showing at the Perth International Film Festival. You can see it tonight, December 9, at UWA Somerville or from 11-16 December at ECU Joondalup Pines.