Arctic

In his debut survival drama, Joe Penna looks at a man desperately struggling to survive in the middle of an Arctic wasteland. Although he manages to work out a safe routine after many weeks, an unexpected event forces Overgård (Mads Mikkelsen) to leave the shelter he had built out of his wrecked plane and to embark on a journey that guarantees nothing but bitter cold. Presented at the Cannes Festival, Arctic is impressive in its understatement. Penna is uninterested in having too many attractions: he focuses on the overwhelming silence, which is interrupted only by the sound of a watch counting off the endless days-and the tired face of Mads Mikkelsen, which is much more expressive than words, which no one would be able to hear anyway.