Given that her career spans nearly 40 years, it is hard to believe that, prior to her remarkable new film The Ice Tower, Lucile Hadžihalilović had made just three feature films: Innocence (2004), Evolution (2015), and Earwig (2021). In their respective years, all of these excellent Belgian co-productions played at the London Film Festival, and her latest film continued this trend with two screenings at the 2025 LFF. But four features do not tell the whole story: in addition to making a few shorts, Hadžihalilović has produced several films directed by her partner and frequent collaborator Gaspar Noé—who has a notable acting role in The Ice Tower—including Lux Æterna, Vortex, and I Stand Alone, the last of which she also edited.
Earlier this year, the 70s-set The Ice Tower played as one of the silent screenings at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival, which Hadžihalilović attended 20 years after Innocence was selected for the same event. While the latter film has often been described as a dark fairy tale, Hadžihalilović’s latest effort is more directly inspired by the work of the master of the genre, Hans Christian Andersen. As with all of her previous features, The Ice Tower focuses firmly on children, following runaway orphan Jeanne (Clara Pacini), who takes shelter in a film studio where an adaptation of Andersen’s 1844 short story "The Snow Queen"—starring the haughty Cristina (Marion Cotillard) in the title role—is in production.
Jeanne is fascinated by both the fairy story and the lead actress, and once the teenager’s presence in the studio becomes known, Cristina begins to reciprocate her attention. It is by no means a symmetrical relationship—as one might expect, the imperious Cristina clearly calls the shots—but the two develop a strange bond as the film shoot progresses (a bewigged Noé is good value as the slightly seedy director of the film-within-the-film). Just as Cristina is inhabiting a role, Jeanne—thanks to a stolen ID—also adopts a persona of her own, assuming the name Bianca. The game between the pair is as engrossing as it is disconcerting, and newcomer Pacini impresses opposite the Oscar-winning Cotillard.
The Ice Tower (French: La tour de glace), true to its title, is glacially paced, but it is also a hypnotic, immersive, and deeply unsettling work. As the film advances, the worlds inside and outside of "The Snow Queen" begin to overlap, eventually shifting back and forth so fluidly that they become almost impossible to separate. Hadžihalilović's meticulous mise-en-scène is greatly enhanced by the work of Earwig’s returning cinematographer, Jonathan Ricquebourg (also DoP on the Larrieu brothers’ Tralala), who expertly captures the wintry light that envelops both realms featured here. The Ice Tower feels like the ultimate refinement of what Lucile Hadžihalilović has been developing throughout her impeccable feature film career; this is a, ahem, towering piece of real cinema from a major filmmaker.
