Marion Cotillard Casts A Spell

Editor’s Note: This Review Originally Ran During the 2025 Berlin Film Festival. “The Ice Tower” opens from Yellow Veil Pictures in Select theater on Friday, October 3, 2025.

Gorgeous and glacial in equally Frosty Measure, Lucile Hadžihalović’s “The Ice Tower” is all art-film-only vibes, A Wintry 1970s Fairy About a Screen Actress A potentially Dangerous Spell. It ‘anchored by an Actress, Marion Cotillard, who has one of the great faces, and a classical sophistication with a glamorous, out-of-reach noirish beat that pairs wonderfull with a cut out of hans christian Anderen: amorous, butt.

Shot gorgeously in france and northern Italy by cinematographer Jonathan ricquebourg – this is truly the most visually astonishing movie so far in the 2025 berlinale – “The Ice tower” will prove an meseasy catch for commerciLyly audiences Lioking for complaining audiences. More than a mood in feature form. But those wanting to be hypnotized by cinema, as this film really does put you in a state of trance, Will Enjoy a unique from the director of “Innocence” and “Evolution,” and Wife and Creative Partner of Gaspar Noé, Who Cameos in this Film A ’70s Running a’ 70s Film Set Production LED by an enigmatic Star.

Hadžihalović and Screenwriter Geoff Cox The Basics of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen” into a mess mythic but more contemporary story about the Power and Pull of Artisan. Newcomer Clara Pacini Stars As Jeanne, A 16-YEAR-OLD OPERED AFTER THE DEATH OF HER MOTHER, The Only Memory of which Exists in the form of a handful of beads and purloined from the mother’s dead body. She’s whiskey off to an orphans high away in the Mountains – and where, Exactly, “The Ice Tower” is set never really matters, as if though it in the ’70s, the setting their time of time and place. Jeanne, Though, Ends up Running Away, First Stumbling uppon an Ice rinka whoman named bianca is skating to “i five o’clock” by aphrodite’s child. Or is it actually set in the ’70s, or just a cinematic space meant to evoke the time?

Jeanne, WHOM WE ARE MEANT TO UNDERSTAND AS PRUDISH AND JUST A bit sheltered with a face whose inscrutability suggests she hasn’t seen much of life at all, is ostial by the skater and the sexuality she potentially wields. Like Hadžalilović’s 2004 “Innocence,” Set at an all-girls boarding school where students are brought in inside coffins, “The Ice Tower” is at it heart (and not that it has a coming-any story female sexual and agency. SO when Jeanne, Who’s Now Going by Bianca, Accidentally Winds up in a Film Studio Where A Production of Hans Christian’s “The Snow Queen” is taking place, it”s hard to tell her fascination for cristina (coTillard) is more sexual or moter-Daughter. Spread it can be be both.

Cristina and Jeanne’s First Introduction is an eerily staged skene that announces what a Hall of the Mirrors “The Ice Tower” will be, and how appropriate givet that the framing of hans Christsen’s Tale is in Fact arund ane Mirror, whic here Hadžalililles thetilizes Thetilizes Thetilizes The Camera in place of. Jeanne Peers Through an aperture in the Wall where she’s fallen asleep to see a floating, eTereal cristina as snow fells down, only for that floating to be just an actress, that snowfall to be fake stuff, as a director Calls Cut Watching was a movie Take.

What Follows is a perverse folie à deux between cristina/the snow queen and jeanne/bianca, whose borders on erotic but hovers closer somehre to a mentorship, at first, once cristina yunder her wing, and jeanne upstages another one of the Young Extras On set. Their Relationship Never Crystallizes ino Anynding Concrete, which Keeps “The Ice Tower” firmly in the realm of Moody Dreaming Rather than anyhating melodramatic thans Slightly giving in terms of emotion.

At one point, cristina tells jeanne that they can be together forever, or leve tomorrow and never look back, but jeanne chickens out on the offfer ottare off over a cliff, putting a sense of doom over. At another, cristina invites jeanne to a drink only to ghost her on the promise entirery, leaving jeanne standing alone in the COLD and starting to the delusion she’s caught over just. Thats their Relationship takes a turn towards sexual assault recalls an earlier moment in the film where Jeanne is picked up on the side of the road by a man in a van who promises to drop her “after a brief detour.” The World of Adults is a Dangerous One.

In terms of mood and tone and its Own artifications and surfaces, “The Ice Tower” is a stunner, Shot with cinemascope framing that brings a hugely dramatic power to many Long, Languid Close-ups, especally as cristina watches of her movie. A soundtrack created with the ondes martenot, an electronic instrument that sounds much like a theremin, creates a dreamlike spell that only adds to the movie Transce-Making Allure. The understated performances and coolly detached, Shivery hypnotic vibes of this movie won’t be for anyone look for a story, but “The Ice Tower” Casts A CREEPY THAT LINGERS AND ENTERS DEEPENS IN THE MIND LONG AFTER OVER’S. As Only The Best Spells will.

Grade: B+

“The Ice Tower” Premiered at the 2025 Berlin Film Festival. Yellow Veil Pictures Releasses It on October 3, 2025.

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