Summary
Game Rant can share an exclusive clip fromSummerlight… and Then Comes the Night. The Icelandic dramedy has just been treated to a limited theatrical release in the United States.
Summerlight… and Then Comes the Nightis an adaptation of an eponymous 2005 novel by Jon Kalman Stefansson, an acclaimed Icelandicnovelistwith a dozen works to his name. The book and the movie alike depict life in a small Icelandic rural town, which is left unnamed, in the late 20th century. They are composed of interlinked stories of the town’s inhabitants, which serve to explore everything from basic human desires to the meaning of life itself.
‘Summerlight… and Then Comes the Night’ Introduces its Remote Setting in New Clip
Game Rant can now share an exclusive clip from theSummerlightmovie adaptation. The brief video establishes the film’s setting with several serene scenery shots, all the while its narrator introduces the place as largely unremarkable. Even so, he highlights how the rural town is unique in that it doesn’t have a church or a graveyard, “which creates an illusion that no one ever dies” there.
The five scenes from the clip are fairly representative of its overall aesthetic, which largely relies on wide-angle shots that are color-graded with a heavy green tint and generally desaturated. This givesSummerlight’sIcelandic sceneryan otherworldly feel, which was very much an intentional creative choice meant to illustrate the almost magical qualities of the movie’s unnamed setting, which is something that Stefansson’s novel repeatedly alludes to. The other effect of the film’s color palette is that it helps present its vast landscapes as a visage of the past.
AlthoughSummerlight… and Then Comes the Nightinitially premiered in October 2022, it wasn’t until summer 2024 that it secured a U.S. release, with its stateside distribution rights being acquired by Juno Films. Thebook-to-movie adaptationsubsequently had its stateside theatrical debut earlier today, September 20. Over the following week,Summerlightwill be exclusively screened at the IFC Center in Greenwich Village, New York City, which will be holding four screenings per day, the latest of which will start at 9pm. A Q&A session with director Elfar Adalsteins and star Anna Maria Pitt will be held following the 6:30pm screening on September 21.
Apart from Pitt,Summerlight’s cast includes Heida Reed, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Sara Dögg Ásgeirsdóttir, and Svandis Dora Einarsdottir, among over half a dozen other Icelandic actors.Summerlightwas nominated for five awards, of which it won one, receiving the Best Nordic Film accolade at the 2023 edition of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.
