L'Iceberg (2005)
Directed by Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon

Film Review

Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon and Bruno Romy are definitely three names to watch out for, judging by this, their first spirited foray into cinema.  L'Iceberg has to be one of the most original film comedies in decades, a bizarre excursion into surreal burlesque absurdity which feels like a quaint homage to the comedy giants of the silent era (Chaplin and Keaton in particular) but is so much more: a love story, an epic adventure, an existentialist fable... Comédie poétique is perhaps the most fitting epithet for this beguiling and pretty unclassifiable cinematic oddity, but even that seems hardly to do it justice.

L'Iceberg is not only captivating, and frequently funny, it is also extremely daring - indeed it is surprising that such an experimental film ever secured financial backing, let alone found an enthusiastic audience so readily.  Taking its cue from the early silent comedies, most of the film consists of static wide-shots within which the protagonists are confined and compelled to generate all the activity to keep the film alive and the audience interested.  Most filmmaker's today concentrate their effort on post-production - when editing and digital effects offer so many possibilities, why waste time meticulously preparing each individual shot?   Abel, Gordon and Romy take us to the other extreme, front-loading the effort so that what they shoot is pretty much what we see - and the result feels refreshingly honest and direct.  The special effects that the team use appear to be limited to some pretty basic back projection, which would have looked terrible in any other film but works amazingly well here.

Much of the comedy has a deliciously dark hue to it, an acknowledgement that life can be hard and, at times, pretty damn spiteful.  Fiona's quest for her identity comes about only after she has almost frozen to death in a freezer and very nearly causes the death of the two men who are closest to her, a hopelessly romantic (and generally hopeless) husband and a deaf and dumb sailor.  Fiona and her husband find it virtually impossible to communicate with one another (cue some very funny repeat gags) and yet their mutual dependency is evident in just about every scene.   L'Iceberg expresses some very basic human needs - the need for personal fulfilment, the need to be loved and recognised, the need to feel that life means something - and it does so by the unlikeliest route, via some pretty bizarre comic flights of fancy.  The film is a genuine cinematic innovation, and the word has yet to be invented which can sum up its unique blend of charm and magic.  The best you can say is that it is a work of poetic genius, and a highly entertaining one at that.

Film Synopsis

Fiona manages a fast-food restaurant in an average town and lives in an average house, married to an average man.  One evening, she manages to lock herself in her restaurant's freezer room, and there she must stay until she is let out the following morning.  Not only does Fiona survive the experience, it exhilarates her and arouses her spirit for adventure.  On the spur of the moment, she walks out on her average husband and her two average children and heads for the coast, where she meets up with a deaf and dumb sailor who instantly falls in love with her.  Just before Fiona and the sailor set out on the latter's yacht, the abandoned husband turns up and pleads with Fiona to return to him.  Fiona knows she cannot go back, and so begins her great adventure in the North Atlantic, on a little boat named Le Titanique...