Against the Ice
The true-life story of two men’s pioneering spirit tries too hard to be more than it is.
Of ice and men: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Joe Cole
History is carved out by foolhardy men. In the words of the Danish explorer Ejnar Mikkelsen, “you always believe there will be a way.” And so Mikkelsen, accompanied by a young mechanic called Iver Iversen, set off in 1909 across the icy wasteland of Greenland to recover the records of the former explorer Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen – and the evidence that the Danish had largely mapped out the area before the Americans. In fact, the Danes went on to prove that Robert Peary’s ‘hypothetical’ Peary’s Channel – a passage that separated mainland Greenland from the American’s self-named Peary Land – did not even exist. Mikkelsen’s endeavour proved to be a feat of extraordinary determination, courage, madness and, perhaps, vanity. History is awash with stories of brave, noble men pushing back the frontiers of the known world and Ejnar Mikkelsen was no exception. However, his feat may remain of primary interest to the Danish, which may explain the extensive commitment of the Danish actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who not only plays Mikkelsen but co-wrote and co-produced the film.
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau has always been a better actor with subtitles and the film’s earlier scenes, featuring the original crew members of Mikkelsen’s ship Alabama, do not convince. The film’s strength is its visuals, huge vistas hauntingly captured by DP Torben Forsberg, and captured on location in the blizzard-blown wilds of Iceland and Greenland. It’s reassuring to see that there’s still a lot of ice somewhere, although a sequence with a polar bear, recreated in a computer, looks hokey in the extreme.
Frankly, there’s not a lot of story – or narrative momentum – to hold the attention, and so the drama rests on the acting chops of the two actors, Coster-Waldau and the London-born Joe Cole. The former plays Mikkelsen as the strong silent type, while Cole inanely talks the hind legs off a reindeer. It’s a two-man show and the men begin to create as much friction with the audience as they do with each other. It is a case of desperation, then, that the scriptwriters – Coster-Waldau and Joe Derrick – introduce an imaginary character to stave off the prospect of audience boredom. It is a mistake. It merely forces a wedge between what is on screen and what we, the viewer, believes is real.
The best moments turn up in the detail: the two men’s obsession with an old postcard featuring a line-up of nurses, each of whom takes on a personality for the men to fantasise about. The other bits – presumably drawn from Ejnar Mikkelsen’s 2003 memoir Two Against the Ice – explore the minutia of survival in the Polar wastes: slicking the runners of their sleds with fresh ice formed from the water in their mouths, to the inspection of a dog’s liver with a silver necklace to test its toxicity (answer: don’t try this at home). More of this would have added meat to the bones of the experience, rather than the endless prattling of Joe Cole. The visuals are perfectly strong enough to draw the audience in. The added dialogue (in English) and the gimmicks merely detract from the drama.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Joe Cole, Heida Reed, Gísli Örn Garðarsson, Sam Redford, Diarmaid Murtagh, Edward Speleers, Frankie Wilson, Charles Dance.
Dir Peter Flinth, Pro Baltasar Kormákur and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Screenplay Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Joe Derrick, from Ejnar Mikkelsen’s book Two Against the Ice, Ph Torben Forsberg, Pro Des Atli Geir Grétarsson, Ed Morten Højbjerg, Music Volker Bertelmann, Costumes Margrét Einarsdóttir, Sound Kjartan Kjartansson.
RVK Studios/Ill Kippers-Netflix.
102 mins. Denmark/Iceland. 2022. UK and US Rel: 2 March 2022. Cert. 12.
