When travelling to another place, another city, another town, there’s a certain anonymity that frees one’s self. No one knows who you are, so you’re not expected to maintain a certain personality, and that can be necessary for young people trying to find their way. The Breaking Ice shows this in a fairly sentimental way, juxtaposing the wintry, snowy landscape with the warm but fleeting connection forming between three lonely adults, but there’s just something honest in the way the three try to hide but still share the same youthful ennui, even if they come from vastly different backgrounds. The Breaking Ice might not be daring enough to delve into the queer aspect of this trio, but it’s still a lovely, well-crafted drama contemplating the youth’s melancholy.
"Jules et Jim for the seasonally depressed, full of emotional nooks and crannies that are excavated as the three actors let the push and pull between what is communicable and what must be suffered alone flicker across their faces."
— Sophie Monks Kaufman
"The Breaking Ice sticks with you because it doesn't lead its characters out of the maze, it just melts down the walls between them."
— David Ehrlich
In cold wintry Yanji, a city on China's northern border, young urbanite Haofeng, visiting from Shanghai, feels lost and adrift. By chance, he goes on a tour led by Nana, a charming tour guide who instantly fascinates him. She introduces him to Xiao, a personable but frustrated restaurant worker. The three bond quickly over a drunken weekend. Confronting their individual traumas, their frozen desires slowly thaw as they seek to liberate themselves from an icy world.
In Yanji, a city on China’s northern border, young Shanghai urbanite Haofeng meets charming tour guide Nana and likeable restaurant worker Xiao in a weekend that slowly thaws their heart’s desires.
Yanji isn’t a really big tourist spot, in part due to the cold, but it just looks so beautiful here that I’m considering the possibility of this film being a tourism ad.
LF: New friends to frolic in the snow and alleviate my depression with.
Cannes
1 nomination
