Review: In ‘Winter Brothers,’ a Frosty Sibling Rivalry

“Winter Brothers” is a debut feature from a director with a background as a visual artist; for better and worse, it shows. Hlynur Palmason, born in Iceland but based in Copenhagen, shot the movie in and around a real-life limestone factory in Denmark, a location that allows Palmason and his sound designer, Lars Halvorsen, to give the film an extraordinary aural dimension. The clanks, drips and sirens of the workplace accumulate in a soundscape that suggests Björk crossed with “Stomp.” An electronic score by Toke Brorson Odin blends well into the industrial symphony.

The movie also has a startling visual texture. Shooting on 16-millimeter film, Palmason, gliding his camera through snowy woods, has an eye for compositions that rhyme chalk-covered faces and wintry vistas. Although the way “Winter Brothers” is edited encourages a degree of disorientation, a narrative — either productively minimalist or simply underdeveloped, depending on your taste — gradually emerges.

The protagonist, Emil (Elliott Crosset Hove), is a socially isolated employee at the factory. He estimates that he has worked there for between five and seven years (what’s the difference?) and does not profess much interest in advancement. There is a hint of fraternal tension with his brother, a co-worker named Johan (Simon Sears).

“You know what your problem is?” Johan asks Emil at one point. “You don’t like anyone. You don’t like people.”

“Johan, I am a person,” Emil replies. “How can I not like myself?”

That exchange offers a taste of the movie’s mix of the bleak and the absurdist, although whether Emil is as innocent as he often acts is an open question. He steals chemicals from the factory to brew his own liquor, which almost certainly sickens one of the workers and leads to an ambush-like meeting with his boss (Lars Mikkelsen). Emil also creepily yearns for a young woman, Anna (Victoria Carmen Sonne), a longing that intensifies his rivalry with Johan.

At times, Emil’s behavior puts him just to the lighter side of Travis Bickle. Having acquired a rifle, he watches a military training videotape and practices his shooting positions. It is unclear whether the movie means to critique his aggression or, more troublingly, pat him on the back for rare assertiveness.

On a character level, “Winter Brothers” is only arresting in individual moments: a brutally staged brawl in the buff between Johan and Emil, or Emil sweetly performing a trick of chemistry for Anna. Palmason’s showy technique, magnetic on its own, ultimately seems like a way of adding mystery to a story that, like Emil, is content with having no place to go.

—

‘Winter Brothers’

Not rated. In Danish and English, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes.