You can’t immediately know for sure that what you’ve seen is real in the opening minutes of “When the Light Breaks” after Una (Elin Hall) has gone to sleep. It’s been a long day culminating in her boyfriend Diddi (Baldur Einarsson) committed to break up with his longtime girlfriend Klara (Katla Njálsdóttir) the next morning so he and Una can start their lives together, with graduation from the art school where they met in Reykjavík soon upon them, and as the lights of a tunnel begin to pass, it could simply be that she’s imagining the road ahead while catching Zs or it could be Diddi on his way out of town the next morning, but either way it ends horrifically as flames overtake the screen when the scene ends in a massive explosion.
These two experiences aren’t mutually exclusive in Rúnar Rúnarsson’s arresting drama, which follows Una drifting through the aftermath of a tragedy with her mind fixed on what could’ve been as the reality keeps pulling her back to confront what’s going on right in front of her. After giving herself permission to picture a future with Diddi, Una has to gradually allow for the notion that it isn’t to be as word spreads on campus that at least 10 have died in a car accident. With few details being released to protect the privacy of the victims, Una can’t know if Diddi is amongst the casualties or even if he was around the area to begin with, though after learning from his roommate Gunni (Mikael Kaaber) that he borrowed his car to see Klara rather than take public transportation, she has to consider the possibility and a day that’s unusual enough, when in one of the many gently surreal touches applied by Rúnarsson, some people can be seen wandering the streets in costume in preparation for local festivities that night, becomes one that Una will never forget.
In limiting the narrative to a 24-hour timeframe that plays out on screen under a fleet 80 minutes (without its end credits, it might even clock in under 75), “When the Light Breaks” can occasionally feel a little too pat for a situation that its own characters describe as a mess, with Una’s journey through all the stages of grief and her eventual relationship with Klara, who arrives in Reykjavík for more details, all unfolding at a breakneck pace that could strain credulity for some. But that would deny the enormous pull of Hall’s stirring central performance, the striking use of Icelandic topography and architecture to amplify Una’s emotions through canny compositions and Rúnarsson’s shrewd structuring of an event where so many things can be felt all at once, yielding an engrossing delirium reminiscent of Sebastian Schipper’s 2015 overnight one-take wonder “Victoria.”
“When the Light Breaks” indulges in a few more cuts, but Rúnarsson offers Una grace with fluidity that she struggles to find in the unforgiving moment at hand, admiring her youthful naivete to process profound loss without adhering to some particular ideal and finding her own path forward. What could be a rumination on mortality instead flourishes into something more vital and lively when staring into the abyss is reenvisioned as a sea of possibilities and even after the film leaves audiences plenty to sit with, it continues to be deeply moving well after it ends.
“When the Light Breaks” will screen again at the Cannes Film Festival as part of Un Certain Regard on May 16th at 8:30 am at the Debussy Theatre, 4:15 pm at Cineum Imax and 4:30 pm at Licorne, May 17th at 9 am at Cineum Screen X, May 18th at 2 pm at Cineum Screen X.