by Nataliia Serebriakova
Worth: $18.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Saga Garðarsdóttir, Sverrir Gudnason, Ingvar Sigurdsson, Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir, Þorgils Hlynsson, Grímur Hlynsson
Intro:
… more elusive, more poetic, and arguably more intellectually generous than Joachim Trier’s widely praised work [Sentimental Value]
At the centre of Hlynur Pálmason’s film The Love That Remains is an ordinary family seen in the aftermath of a divorce. Anna (Saga Garðarsdóttir), a contemporary artist who works with massive sheets of metal, is raising three children on her own: eleven-year-old twin boys and a teenage daughter (all played by the director’s own children). Her former husband, Magnus (Sverrir Gudnason), works as a fisherman aboard a trawler. On weekends, he visits the family, goes on picnics with the children, and spends most of his emotional energy wondering how he might win Anna back.
Anna also has an elderly father (played by Pálmason’s regular collaborator Ingvar Sigurdsson), who lives nearby, tending to his land and breeding ponies. From time to time, Anna receives phone calls from an irritating colleague and would-be suitor who asks why she cannot dress more “femininely” (“I’ve seen you in a bikini — you have something to show”). A Swedish gallerist also pays her a visit, showing little real interest in her art and instead delivering long, self-indulgent monologues about the virtues of wine.
The family also shares their home with Panda, a funny sheepdog who unexpectedly becomes one of the film’s most charming presences. The dog feels completely at ease in front of the camera, moving through the frame naturally, as if she knows exactly what is expected of her. Panda is constantly nearby — during walks, everyday routines, and moments of tension — adding warmth and a sense of lived-in reality to the film. It’s no surprise that she caught attention in Cannes and was awarded the Palm Dog, a playful but still prestigious prize given to standout canine performances at the festival.
The story unfolds in a remote Icelandic village, and the first practical question that arises is almost banal: how does a divorced artist with three children survive on modest fees in such a place? Yet this question quickly proves irrelevant. The Love That Remains is far less concerned with economics than with emotional ecosystems, intimacy, and the quiet endurance of affection after love has ostensibly ended.
The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and was selected as Iceland’s official submission for the Academy Awards. It ultimately failed to make the shortlist — unlike its Scandinavian “sibling,” Sentimental Value. This omission feels particularly unjust: Pálmason’s film is more elusive, more poetic, and arguably more intellectually generous than Joachim Trier’s widely praised work.
In 2025, Pálmason also released a film titled Joan of Arc, whose imagery and ideas bleed directly into The Love That Remains. Some moments from the previous one even reappear almost unchanged in the next. At the center of this shared visual universe is a striking object: a scarecrow-like figure dressed in medieval armour — Anna’s art piece — standing at the very edge of the shore. Children shoot arrows at it, a game that at one point results in real injury. Through this recurring image, Pálmason weaves a meditation on the masculine dimension within female identity, using the symbolic figure of Joan of Arc — the woman-warrior — as a point of reflection. How does masculinity manifest, and how does femininity? Where do they merge, and where do they clash? It is this riddle, embodied in Anna, that Magnus struggles to understand.
Pálmason’s deep closeness to family, land, and ancestry profoundly shapes his cinema. In many ways, he stands as the opposite of his great Nordic predecessor, Ingmar Bergman, whose austere, glacial universe continues to haunt generations of cinephiles. Conflicts find resolution — sometimes through the simplest of psychological gestures, like screaming into a dark tunnel. It seems that even in Pálmason’s films, the most hopeless situations carry a sense of solace — including death, because in the end, we will all find peace in it.
The Love That Remains screens at Sydney’s Open Air Cinemas, tix here.
