Against the Ice | |
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Directed by | Peter Flinth |
Screenplay by |
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Based on | Two Against the Ice by Ejnar Mikkelsen |
Produced by | Baltasar Kormákur |
Starring |
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Cinematography | Torben Forsberg |
Edited by | Morten Højbjerg |
Music by | Volker Bertelmann |
Production companies |
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Distributed by | Netflix |
Release dates |
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Running time | 102 minutes |
Countries |
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Language | English |
Against the Ice is a 2022 historical survival film directed by Peter Flinth and written by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Joe Derrick, based on the true story recounted in Two Against the Ice by Ejnar Mikkelsen. It stars Coster-Waldau, Joe Cole, Charles Dance, and Heida Reed. The film was shot in Iceland and Greenland. Against the Ice premiered at the 72nd Berlin International Film Festival on February 15, 2022. [1] It was released on Netflix on March 2, 2022, and received mixed reviews from critics.
In 1909, Danish explorer Captain Ejnar Mikkelsen organizes an expedition to Shannon Island, East Greenland, from which he makes treks to recover the records of the ill-fated Denmark expedition. His first attempt is unsuccessful and a crewman loses toes to frostbite in the process, but on the trek Mikkelsen discovers a dead Denmark expedition member with a log and a map showing the location of a cairn built by his expedition. The only volunteer to accompany Mikkelsen on his second attempt is an inexperienced engineer named Iver Iversen, while the rest of the crew stays behind.
Mikkelsen and Iversen lose two of their sled dogs in their first few days and gradually sacrifice the remaining dogs to provide food to the teams that remain. Later, they fight and kill a polar bear. After three months the explorers locate the cairn, which contains records that disprove the existence of the Peary Channel, thus showing that Greenland is a single island and that the United States has no claim in the Arctic. On their way back, Mikkelsen fears that they may not survive, so they build another cairn about 200 miles from Shannon Island in which they deposit the records from the Denmark expedition. Mikkelsen and Iversen finally return to Shannon Island to learn the rest of the crew have returned home, leaving them stranded. They are forced to spend two winters in a cabin with food and supplies while their crewmates struggle to mount a rescue mission.
During their long isolation, the two men return to the cairn they built and retrieve the records. Meanwhile, their cabin is visited by would-be rescuers who find no sign of them. Later Mikkelsen hallucinates that his lover Naja Holm is with him, while Iversen imagines meeting his grandfather. Mikkelsen nearly kills Iversen with a rifle and the two men come very close to losing their sanity before being rescued in 1912. Their evidence from the Denmark expedition leads to American recognition of Greenland as a single island belonging to Denmark. An epilogue reveals that Mikkelsen married Naja a year later, that Iversen never set foot in the Arctic again, and that the two men remained friends for life.
Against the Ice was a co-production between RVK Studios and Ill Kippers. It was directed by Danish director Peter Flinth, who worked with producer Baltasar Kormákur and cinematographer Torben Forsberg to shoot the film on location in Iceland and Greenland whilst using minimal green screens. The film is based on the Danish book Two Against the Ice by Ejnar Mikkelsen. On January 19, 2021, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Joe Cole, Charles Dance, and Heida Reed were confirmed to star. [2] Flinth said he cast Cole as inexperienced crew member Iver Iversen due to the actor's unfamiliarity with Greenland. According to Coster-Waldau, the crew was once stranded on a glacier in Iceland during a storm. The actor suffered a concussion while filming the bear-fighting scene, which was shot using computer-generated imagery (CGI) and a heavyweight judo champion as a stuntman. Flinth had originally wanted to film the scene using a real polar bear. [1]
The film was watched for 30.73 million hours in its first five days, placing second on Netflix's top ten. [3] From March 7 to March 13, the film was watched for 12.73 million hours, finishing third on the charts. [4]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , 57% of 35 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.1/10.The website's consensus reads: "Against the Ice isn't the most original or exciting wilderness thriller, but viewers in search of man-versus-nature entertainment could easily do worse." [5] Metacritic , which uses a weighted average , assigned the film a score of 49 out of 100, based on 14 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. [6]
Though the performances and cinematography received some praise, critics generally criticized the runtime, characters, dialogue, score, and historical accuracy. The Hollywood Reporter 's David Rooney writes, "In the end, the most remarkable thing about Against the Ice is that a real-life story of two men at the mercy of the unforgiving elements, of hunger and illness, possible attack and encroaching madness, can be so curiously deprived of tension." [7] [8] The Times ' Ed Potton praised Coster-Waldau's performance. [9]
Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen was a Danish author, ethnologist, and explorer, from Ringkøbing. He was most notably an explorer of Greenland.
Uummannaq is a town in the Avannaata municipality, in central-western Greenland. With 1,407 inhabitants in 2020, it is the eighth-largest town in Greenland, and is home to the country's most northerly ferry terminal. Founded in 1763 as Omenak, the town is a hunting and fishing base, with a canning factory and a marble quarry. In 1932, the Universal Greenland-Filmexpedition with director Arnold Fanck released the film S.O.S. Eisberg near Uummannaq.
Nikolaj William Coster-Waldau is a Danish actor. He graduated from the Danish National School of Performing Arts in Copenhagen in 1993, and had his breakthrough role in Denmark with the film Nightwatch (1994). He played Jaime Lannister in the HBO fantasy drama series Game of Thrones, for which he received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.
Ejnar Mikkelsen was a Danish polar explorer and writer. He is most known for his expeditions to Greenland.
The Danish National School of Performing Arts is an artistic educational institution governed by the Danish Ministry of Culture. The school offers higher education and continuing education within performing arts. Based in Denmark, the school has campuses in Aarhus, Fredericia, Holstebro, Copenhagen and Odense.
Peter Flinth is a Danish film director.
Nukâka Coster-Waldau, better known professionally as Nukâka, is a Greenlandic actress and beauty pageant titleholder who won Miss Greenland. She is married to Danish actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and has two daughters with him.
Vice Admiral Sir Georg Carl Amdrup, RN was a Danish naval officer, Vice Admiral and Greenland researcher.
The Robert Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role is a Danish Film Academy award presented at the annual Robert Award ceremony to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding leading performance in a Danish film.
Joseph Michael Cole is an English actor. Some of his most notable roles include: Luke in Skins, John Shelby in Peaky Blinders, Marzin and Beckwith in Secret in Their Eyes, Billy Moore in A Prayer Before Dawn, Frank in the Black Mirror episode "Hang the DJ", Sean Wallace in Gangs of London, and Iver Iversen in Against the Ice.
Shot Caller is a 2017 American crime thriller film written and directed by Ric Roman Waugh. The film chronicles the transformation of a well-to-do family man, played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, into a hardened prison gangster, which he undergoes to survive California's penal system after he is incarcerated for his role in a deadly DUI car accident. The film also stars Omari Hardwick, Lake Bell, Jon Bernthal, Emory Cohen, Jeffrey Donovan, Evan Jones, Benjamin Bratt, and Holt McCallany.
Miss Greenland is a national beauty pageant in Greenland.
Hovgaard Island is a large uninhabited island of the Greenland Sea, Greenland. The island was named after Andreas Hovgaard, a polar explorer and officer of the Danish Navy who led an expedition to the Kara Sea on steamship Dijmphna in 1882–83.
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Small Crimes is a 2017 American crime film directed by E. L. Katz from a screenplay by Katz and Macon Blair, based on the novel of the same name by Dave Zeltserman. The film stars Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Joe Denton, a former cop recently released from prison for attempted murder. The film also stars Gary Cole, Molly Parker, Macon Blair, Pat Healy, Jacki Weaver, and Robert Forster. Small Crimes premiered at South by Southwest on March 11, 2017, and was released by Netflix on April 28, 2017.
Niels Peter Høeg Hagen was a Danish military officer, polar explorer and cartographer. He participated and perished in the ill-fated Denmark expedition to NE Greenland in 1906.
The Peary Channel was a hypothetical sound or marine channel running from east to west separating Peary Land in northernmost Greenland from the mainland further south.
Alabama Nunatak is a nunatak in the King Frederik VIII Land area of northeastern Greenland. Administratively it is part of the Northeast Greenland National Park zone.
Two Against the Ice is a non-fiction book authored by Danish explorer Ejnar Mikkelsen. The book details the author's exploration into Greenland, a journey made with his compatriot Iver P. Iversen in 1910. The book was originally published in Danish (1955) and later translated into English by Maurice Michael.
King and Conqueror is an upcoming historical television drama series for BBC Studios and CBS from Michael Robert Johnson, starring James Norton as Harold of Wessex and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as William the Conqueror. Production started in 2024.