Desire Avenue

Nearly twenty years on since catching Is-Slottet (The Ice Palace) late one night on BBC2 as part of their London Film festival season,Is-Slottet remains my favourite film of all time.
The 'plot' is hardly an all-action thriller........Set in the icy Norweigen countryside,two pre-teen girls share an intimate experience following which,out of guilt,one of the girls promises her friend to keep a secret. The next day,unable to face her friend(s) at school, the girl visits a frozen waterfall (the ice palace of the title) and disappears,never to be seen again.
The rest of the film focuses on her friend as she struggles to keep the secret whilst the village folk search in vain for the missing girl.

With minimal dialogue (thankfully as i hate sub-titles ), the film relies on the body language of the main characters and the beautiful music (from Bohren and Aserud) to convey the cold of winter and the feelings of guilt and isolation.

The film has a kind of 'dream-like' feel to it, not too unlike 'Picnic At Hanging Rock.'

Unfortunately, because of the full-frontal nude scenes of the two young actresses,the film has attracted,for all the wrong reasons, undesirable attention.

Nowadays,the BBC wouldn't dare show it here in the UK and it remains un-certificated, which is sad as its a beautiful film and which is still shown on Norweigen tv and in schools.

Oh, I wondered why it's never been shown again - that explains a lot. It is a great shame because it's a profoundly moving film, I stumbled into it part way through and was completely transfixed. Was it twenty years ago, though? Surely not, I can't believe it was that long ago I saw it. Was it only shown on UK tv that once, Rob?

Some of the imagery in this film has stayed with me since that one viewing, to the extent that I'm sure it partly informed the story I wrote for the CQD book, 'Winter Killing'. I remember feeling quite haunted by the end of the film, one particular image really affected me for weeks afterward.

I'd love to see it again, after all these years. Wonder if it's available on DVD?

blue wrote:Was it twenty years ago, though? Surely not, I can't believe it was that long ago I saw it. Was it only shown on UK tv that once, Rob?

The film was released in December 1987 and i'm pretty sure that it was shown on BBC2 the following year....maybe 1989 at the very latest but i'm pretty confident that it was 1988. By sheer fluke,I video-ed the film and still have it on video cassette although i've transferred it to dvd-now for safety.

blue wrote:I'd love to see it again, after all these years. Wonder if it's available on DVD?

Its available on eBay in the form of a bootlegged dvd-r's but there's never been an official DVD release. There was an official video release though,in Norway and the United States,but these don't have any subtitles.

All through the nineties I sought info on any possible soundtrack release without success.

But then in 2000 I bought my first PC and went on-line, and soon managed to track down an email address for the composers so I wrote to them about the soundtrack.

They replied that there was indeed a soundtrack cd issued in Norway back in 1988 and whats more,because of my enthusiasm for their work, a couple of weeks later when they came to England,they brought with them and posted to me (all free of charge) not only the 'Is'Slottet' soundtrack but also a rare cd-r 'orchestral version' plus half a dozen other film soundtrack cds they had done.

Also back in 2001, I made contact with Hilde Nyeggen Martinson who played the girl who went missing.

She was quite astonished to receive my email about the film as it was the first time she'd ever received any communication in the 13 years since the film was released.

Surprisingly,'Is-Slottet;' was the only film she ever made which is a shame as she showed a lot of potential in the film.

eBay are really coming down hard on people who sell boots/CD-Rs etc,so that option may be ruled out...
Sounds like a film I'd like to see...but whether I'd ever get around to watching it is another matter .

RobB wrote: The film was released in December 1987 and i'm pretty sure that it was shown on BBC2 the following year....maybe 1989 at the very latest but i'm pretty confident that it was 1988.

That must have been when I saw it, then - it was definitely late at night on BBC2, as you mentioned. Crikey, I can't believe it was so long ago.

RobB wrote: there's never been an official DVD release.

Damn. This is such a pity, it's a brilliant film and it deserves to be available in good quality.

RobB wrote:because of my enthusiasm for their work, a couple of weeks later when they came to England,they brought with them and posted to me (all free of charge) not only the 'Is'Slottet' soundtrack but also a rare cd-r 'orchestral version' plus half a dozen other film soundtrack cds they had done.

Fantastic!

sound world wrote:eBay are really coming down hard on people who sell boots/CD-Rs etc,so that option may be ruled out...

I think someone involved with the making of the film would have to make some form of official complaint as its such a relatively unknown film,no one else would notice.
However,maybe a buyer who was under the impression that it was an official dvd might complain though when they see the second/third generation quality of the image?

blue wrote:

RobB wrote:because of my enthusiasm for their work, a couple of weeks later when they came to England,they brought with them and posted to me (all free of charge) not only the 'Is'Slottet' soundtrack but also a rare cd-r 'orchestral version' plus half a dozen other film soundtrack cds they had done.

Fantastic!

Yeah,its amazing how kind and generous some people are.

I did in fact send them some money to Norway with a note saying thanks and that they were to buy themselves some drinks, on me, whan they next pass their nearest drinking establishment,.... which is exactly what they did do.

Sweet.

RobB wrote: The 'plot' is hardly an all-action thriller........Set in the icy Norweigen countryside,two pre-teen girls share an intimate experience following which,out of guilt,one of the girls promises her friend to keep a secret. The next day,unable to face her friend(s) at school, the girl visits a frozen waterfall (the ice palace of the title) and disappears,never to be seen again.
The rest of the film focuses on her friend as she struggles to keep the secret whilst the village folk search in vain for the missing girl.

I read the book and I don't remember this thing of intimate experience, but in the introduction it was written that even Vesaas' wife never knew what this secret was.

puce wrote:I read the book and I don't remember this thing of intimate experience, but in the introduction it was written that even Vesaas' wife never knew what this secret was.

Maybe I clumsily used the wrong expression with 'intimate experience' but what i was refering to was when the girls undress for each other in Unn's bedroom,who then,feeling guilty,suddenly dresses again.
That scene is in the book and in the film.

The guilt is important here as it follows Unn's revelation that her Mother was unmarried and that Unn didn't know who her father was.

The novel/film hinges on Unn's feelings of doubt:
'I don't know if i'll go to heaven?' confesses Unn and its this statement that becomes the secret Siss has to keep.

A litttle while back to help anyone who has the film edition without subtitles,I wrote up the english text on the IMDB 'Is-Slottet' message board.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097594/board/nest/53830051