La Pietà

A print of the Anthony van Dyck painting "La Pietà" hangs in the kitchen of the abandoned farmhouse. The white linen that shrouds Jesus’ body resembles the icy mass that surrounds the house. One hundred years ago, seven siblings began documenting changes to the Icelandic glacial landscape in photographs and journals. Photographer Ragnar Axelsson came here as a child and was fascinated by the ice formations. He has now returned to see what the siblings left behind. Decades previously, before the world developed a consciousness of climate change, they quietly worried about the state of the natural world. Axelsson meets contemporary companions and undertakes expeditions to the namesake ice of the island. He attempts to understand the changes and photograph the landscape that is disappearing. The crunching sounds of the ice and the gurgle of the meltwater provide a haunting soundtrack for this cinematic memorial to the eternal ice.