In honour of the arctic onslaught faced by the nation last week, we thought it fitting to offer a breakdown of the best films where snow is the star. As this is the perfect time of year for sacking off work and staying in, bunker down and watch what happens when moviemakers brave the elements. We’re not going to lie, it rarely ends well.
Dead Snow (2009)
In a surprisingly busy genre, zom-com, Dead Snow is the first of many Scandinavian entries on this list (they know a thing or two about snow, and cinema, basically). From Norwegian filmmaker Tommy Wirkola (who is set to turn his hand to the excellent sounding, Hansel and Gretal: Witch Hunters next), this snow bound horror comedy fuses those two most enduring cinematic baddies: Nazis and zombies, while swiftly proving once and for all that fingering Nazi Gold is NEVER a good idea. This is unmissable viewing from inside the warmth and security of your bunker. Plus, let’s face it, blood just looks that little bit more impressive on a white canvas. Oh, and the baddest Nazombie of them all is called Herzog. Tee hee.
Encounters At The End of The World (2007)
Speaking of Werner Herzog, his spectacular documentary masterpiece simply has to make an appearance on this list. Pushing the envelope for capturing Antartica on film, Encounters will have you marvelling at the breathtaking cinematography and the majesty of this desolate but beautiful environment. It will also make you feel actually a bit warmer in comparison to those poor sods scuba diving under ice sheets.
Fargo (1996)
Not only is Marge Gunderson our personal style icon in these snowy times, this crime caper ficticiously “based on true story” is the Coen brothers at their finest. The icey plains of Minnesota provide the perfect backdrop for small time crime going badly wrong with a most brutal, yet chipper end. With just the right balance of black comedy and black ice, Fargo will keep you warm on those long hours indoors faster than you can say “oh yah”.
Let The Right One In (2008)
While 2009 was undoubtedly the Year of The Vampire, one film did it better, and differently, than any other. Let The Right One In is set in a suburb of Stockholm in the early ’80s where adolescent outsiders Oskar and Eli form a tentative friendship. Both are hiding; Oskar from the torment of school bullies and Ellie from the prison of being a lonely teenage vampire. With perfect storytelling, incredible style and lots of the white stuff, Let The Right One In is a masterclass in teenage sexual tension and coming of age fragility and is surprisingly educational when it comes to Vampire lore. Did you know you had to invite a vampire in and that cats hate them?
Insomnia (1997 Norwegian original and 2002 US remake)
These slow burning crime thrillers are both excellent, though we recommend catching Erik Skjoldbjaerg’s original first. Stellen Skarsgaard becomes Al Pacino in the Christopher Nolan remake, as a police officer whose investigation of the murder of a young girl goes horribly awry when he accidentally shoots his partner. Constant Nordic (or Alaskan) daylight disorientates as bright light on gleaming snow becomes an unlikely cinematic trope in an otherwise neo-noirish tale.
The Ice Storm (1997)
Sex, the seventies and suburbia get chucked in the deep freeze in Ang Lee’s tale of two intertwined families in suburban Connecticut trying to weather an ice storm. The cast is fantastic but the kids shine through, featuring a young Tobey Maguire and Katie Holm
es plus child star old hands Christina Ricci and Elijah Woods as the kids just trying to get along, or get laid, over the course of an evening. Meanwhile their parents do the same and clearly have no firmer grip on things than their teenagers. And like all good snow-based suburban family dramas, once the thaw comes, nothing is ever the same again…
Alive (1993)
Yes. That one. The one that is really based on a true story (unlike Fargo which is being post-modern when it says that, yah?). Alive is not exactly a joyous celebration of snow, as a group of plane crash survivors face the unfaceable to decide the undecideable and do, you know, the undoable and eat their dead mates to stay alive.
The Thing (1982)
There is something in the ice… And it’s a parasitic alien life form that assimilates the human it has destroyed! Messing with a group of Antarctic researchers (…wonder if Herzog showed it to his new mates as a joke?) the thing slowly tries to destroy the group as paranoia and distrust kick in against a snow soaked backdrop. Although considered a flop upon its release, The Thing is now considered a cult classic and no snow-film list could ever be complete without it. In fact, its posthumous appeal has lead to to a rather awesome-sounding prequel, which is currently in the works.
Wonder Boys (2000)
Curtis Hanson makes the cinematic equivalent of that difficult second album by following up LA Confidential with this Pittsburgh-based story of a novelist and professor trying to write his second novel whilst dodging his editor, having an affair and befriending one student, whilst flirting with another and generally having a bit of a “moment”. Woefully underrated, this is warm and funny and a rare example in recent years of Michael Douglas actually coming close to watchable. It also stars Robert Downey Jr, Tobey Maguire and Francis McDormand, all providing excellent support. The snow is also very similar to what snow is usually like in Britain, that is rainy, icey, melty and grey.
A Simple Plan (1988)
Back to Minnesota again with Bill Paxman playing a man convinced by his simple brother (Billy Bob Thornton) and his mate to keep $4 million dollars they find in the wreckage of a crashed plane. Things go steadily downhill as the band of unlikely thieves try to keep a handle on themselves and each other without much luck. An icy and taut meditation on how easily good men can become bad, A Simple Plan has perhaps the most important snow lesson for everyone about what to do when you find something that doesn’t belong to you. So if you find a glove in the snow, just do the right thing and hang it upright on the nearest fence.
