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Mirror Mirror: Lucile Hadžihalilović on Berlinale 2025 Premiere The Ice Tower
Marion Cotillard (center) in The Ice Tower We didn’t have to wait too long after Earwig (2021) for Lucile Hadžihalilović’s enigmatic new offering, The Ice Tower. The whistling sounds of mountain winds announce the arrival of the Snow Queen (Marion Cotillard), both to the set of a film she’s leading in 1970s France and in the life of 16-year-old runaway orphan Jeanne (Clara Pacini). Loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Snow Queen,” the script—co-written by Hadžihalilović together with Geoff Cox—explores the subterranean tensions of loneliness and womanhood in various shapes and forms. While it may as well be considered the most “legible” Hadžihalilović film so far, The Ice Tower does not divulge its secrets right away.
Cinema and filmmaking play a big role here—the incredibly ornate mise-en-scène, glacial long takes, and the overall sense of enchantment remind me of George Méliès—but not as big as the impenetrable desiring psyche of a young girl. Jeanne and Cristina’s relationship is one of mirroring, perhaps as cursed as the looking glass in the Snow Queen’s chambers.
Filmmaker: The Ice Tower is a loose adaptation of Andersen’s “The Snow Queen.” What has your personal relationship with fairytales been like since you were young until now?
Hadžihalilović: I especially love Anderson’s fairy tales, because they are, apart from a few, not [made] for children: the characters are very complex, there’s a lot of cruelty and masochism. The dark, weird and very mysterious things are often made softer by the children’s film adaptation. I was lucky that my mother read me Anderson tales when I was little—well, maybe not the darkest ones—but even “The Little Mermaid” is a very disturbing one…
Filmmaker: Yes, because every time she takes a step with her human legs, it feels “like a thousand knives are piercing her,” as he describes it.
Hadžihalilović: Yes, and in the end it’s all for nothing! That idea of a meaningless sacrifice is very, very disturbing. So, I was also interested in that aspect of Anderson’s story—maybe it’s not as present in the original of “The Snow Queen,” but I thought: “Well, Jeanne is not the Little Mermaid.” She is not ready to sacrifice herself, not really, for the queen’s love, no matter how much she wants to be loved by her. She’s more self-protective than that.
Filmmaker: As someone who spent years researching fairy tales for my PhD, I have to ask: since your film grants Jeanne the possibility of choice, something that is rarely part of a traditional fairytale narrative, did you read scholarship too?
Hadžihalilović: Yes, especially Carl Jung’s interpretations of fairy tales and his archetypal figures. For instance, in the beginning of working on this project, I realized that I was wondering: Why should Jeanne be attracted to a cold woman instead of a warm one? It was when I was reading interpretations of fairy tales, like the one by Jung, I realized it was because she had to confront herself with this figure. It’s the same as the “cold” mother, the “toxic” mother, an archetypal figure I can see in my previous films too. It was there in Evolution, too, but through the absence of the mother, while in this one, it’s present in a much more obvious way.
Filmmaker: It’s obvious that all your films are, in some way, a fairytale. They feature a metamorphosis that can be metaphorical (Innocence, Earwig), or physical (Evolution), but there is always a transition, rather than a conflict-resolution pattern. What’s the stake of metamorphosis as a storytelling device?
Hadžihalilović: No, there is no narrative resolution, but I think it’s about catharsis, nevertheless. In The Ice Tower, there is a catharsis for the girl. She has to go through things, she’s of an age when she’s trying to find herself, which she does through different identities. Firstly, she assumes the identity of this girl she sees on the ice ring [Bianca], who is also an idealized image of a femininity she could relate to or would like to become. It just so happens that she can steal her identity because she finds her bag. Then there is, of course, Cristina as the Snow Queen. After meeting her, Jeanne transforms herself on this journey through the film, from becoming an extra to assuming the secondary role as an actress. For every step of her transformation, she acquires a different aspect [of a character], a different costume and make-up and so on. So, every metamorphosis is like a process of initiation for her until she confronts this idolized figure of a woman: on the one hand, this actress [Cristina Van der Berg], but also this very mysterious and scary figure of the Snow Queen. I was going to say “Death Queen” just there, which is also true, I guess.
Filmmaker: Costumes are always a crucial part of your films, designating each person’s role within the film world. How early did you start thinking about the costumes in conjunction with the film’s narrative?
Hadžihalilović: When I realized that Jeanne would stumble on a film set, naturally she’d be wearing a costume herself. Also, the costume of the Snow Queen is the first thing that attracts her, in a way. She fetishizes that dress the moment she discovers she can touch the costume before even meeting Cristina. So, it came quite early in the process of writing. During the preparation, I was trying to find some examples and references and there was this 1935 adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream [by Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle] with a magical, fanciful world. Their costumes were an inspiration. And of course, [a costume] is a very visual way to say, “You could be different.” That’s another aspect of yourself.
Filmmaker: There’s this one crystal Jeanne plucks off from the dress, which then becomes a cinematic device to create a kaleidoscopic view through the camera in a scene that reminds me of the way textured glass was used in Earwig.
Hadžihalilović: So, Midsummer Night’s Dream was also a reference for the Snow Queen’s costume: it was an amazing kind of dress, shiny and quite magical. We knew Jeanne would have to take a part of this costume with her, but it took a while to find the proper kind of crystal: it had to both fit the dress and make the right kind of reflections! It was a whole quest to find this element. And of course, it plays a bit like if it was a lens of a camera itself, when she is looking through it. When writing the script, I knew that Jeanne was going to play with the crystal, [rotating it to the light] to get some reflections out of it [as we have in one scene], but I didn’t think we would use that as a kind of device to shoot through it.
Filmmaker: So, how did it happen?
Hadžihalilović: When we were shooting the scene with the little girl at the foster home, as she was playing with the crystal we realized that if we could film through it, we could see a bit of the set. Then came the idea of using it as a proper device to shoot the maquette [of the Snow Queen’s kingdom]. And we loved the maquette we had! We didn’t have a lot of chances to actually use it or film it during the shoot, so it was a pity. But when we decided to use it, frame it through the crystal and the light that was moving around a bit like we used the glasses in Earwig, it was actually the same thing in the end.
Filmmaker: It also reminded me of proto-cinema or the early days of cinema, and that pure enchantment it would bring. I always try to imagine what it must have been like to witness cinema for the first time back then and really cherish films that manage to translate that emotion. What do you think about the magical properties of cinema?
Hadžihalilović: Exactly! I also had the magical lanterns in mind. It’s funny because Jeanne is a child who has nothing; all she has is her imagination. She can be easily fascinated by a crystal, which is somehow nothing but also gives her access to another world or transfigures this world. In the fairy tale, there is this idea of a mirror built by the devil that shows only the worst things, so somehow this crystal is also a piece of that mirror, as is the screen, as is the camera lens. But it brings freshness and excitement to this young girl who doesn’t have much access to images. For her, the crystal is as magical as cinema.
Filmmaker: It’s easy to assume that Jeanne has never seen a film before she watches the rushes in the projection room.
Hadžihalilović: I guess so! They could have had a TV set in the foster home, but we decided not to. So then: yes, she had never seen a film before.
Filmmaker: The “real” world and the film-within-the-film exist in close proximity and the scenes where the two coexist are fascinating. As an audience, we’re often not aware that what we’re seeing is “the film,” so I’d like to ask how you structured such an immersive cinematic grammar that shows these two worlds as close to one another as they are in Jeanne’s imagination.
Hadžihalilović: It was clear from the script that what happens in the film-within-the-film is, in fact, a continuation of what happened to Jean in real life, on the set. Similarly, what happens between her and Cristina mirrors what happens in the film. It’s the same story which is being told sometimes in reality, sometimes in the film-within-the-film, or maybe in Jeanne’s dreams at some point. Maybe she’s the one who created the film-within-the-film? Together with [cinematographer] Jonathan Ricquebourg we decided that The Snow Queen [the film they were shooting in the film], shouldn’t look too differently from our film. So the link, or the frontier of reality, would be blurred with the help of very slight differences. But still, I knew that I was going to edit it as a mix between reality and film: for example, now we are looking at Jeanne looking at the set, etc. What I wanted was to blur the frontier so there is emotional continuity.
Filmmaker: What were the technical differences then between the two films? I can tell a slight difference in color and grain, but it’s difficult for me to spot a difference in the lens used.
Hadžihalilović: Yes, in fact, there is a lens difference. At the time [in the 1970s], they would have shot in real Cinemascope, which means it would have been an optical device, while for us today, it’s simply framing. So we had one lens for our film, and they had another; not so different, but slightly wider. We also decided to add a bit more grain on the film shots when we see them projected. It was important to keep them different, but not so much that when we cut, the audience would feel like jumping to another world.
Filmmaker: And did you shoot them separately?
Hadžihalilović: No, not necessary, because our schedules were based on the sets. Sometimes we had to do that, but of course, it was easy to do all the shots that were supposed to be 35mm for hours on one roll. It was quite easy to change the lens anyway, but we’d try not to get the two mixed up.
Filmmaker: On the one hand, we have cinematic projection, and on the other hand, there’s a psychological projection going on between Jeanne and Cristina. Did this analogy inform the relationship between the two at all?
Hadžihalilović: It was more about the mirror. The Ice Tower is a portrait in a mirror, in a way, with one woman mirroring the other at different times of their lives. You can imagine that Cristina was a girl like Jeanne is now, while Jeanne could become someone like Cristina in the future. They are both fascinated with each other. I think Jeanne is [the only one who’s] really looking at Cristina when even the director in the film-within-the-film doesn’t look at her anymore and this movie star is very much alone. Suddenly, there is this girl who is really looking at her and even sees her suffering when the others only see her power; as a result, thanks to Jeanne, Cristine sees herself in her eyes. It’s like a mirror in a mirror, in a way. Jeanne, on her end, sees a possibility of what she could become or would like to become… until she realizes how broken this woman is.
Filmmaker: There’s also the lover’s gaze, as per Roland Barthes.
Hadžihalilović: Hm—maybe, but I wanted it to be complex. It’s obvious that Jeanne is somehow looking for a mother figure, but there is also a kind of eroticism or auto-eroticism in the way she looks at Cristina. I think both want to be loved. I don’t know if it’s even sexual between them, it’s more like Cristina sees the life in Jeanne and, like a vampire, wants to suck that life out of her. She also wants to destroy her, the way she herself has been destroyed perhaps.
Filmmaker: That’s evident in the kiss they share, which is very vampiric.
Hadžihalilović: Yes! We tried to make it as weird as possible a kiss, a kiss that is literally taking Jeanne’s life.
Filmmaker: The ambivalent attraction made me think of Laura Kinsale’s essay “The Androgynous Reader: Point of View in the Romance,” where she writes that when a woman reads a romance novel, they identify with both the male hero and the one to be saved. In this way, identification is always shifting because sometimes when we feel erotic feelings for someone or complex feelings, we’re not sure whether we like them or want to be like them. It’s a strange dynamic push and pull, especially for women, because one can argue that this is some sort of masochism. But at the same time, it’s very clear for Jeanne that her desire is tied to self-actualization.
Hadžihalilović: Yes, exactly. It was interesting for me to have two women looking at each other and this young girl looking at a woman rather than at a man. Jeanne can become like Cristina; she sees a reflection of herself that she can identify and also desire it.
Filmmaker: Also, Marion Cotillard brings so much more outward emotion in this film than she did in Innocence, the previous film you worked on together. Cristine is cold, but also has a melodramatic streak to her.
Hadžihalilović: Yes, she’s more complex and more alive! I tried to have an adult character that is a bit less of a puppet. At first it’s just words on the paper, then you start to imagine how it might be with someone playing the part. I thought of Marion [Cotillard] quite early on but wasn’t sure if she would be able to fit the film in her schedule. She has this quality I wanted Cristina to have: in an instance, you could see her as charming and seductive when talking to the girl, then she could suddenly shift to something weirder and perverse even. It’s a tricky balance, so when thinking who could embody this character, I thought Marion could have both those sides. She’s very sensual and very warm, but she also can be a bit cold, a bit distant, even a bit scary too. It becomes the choice of the actor which side to channel.
