A tense thriller with a seriously impressive 91% Rotten Tomatoes score has just landed on Amazon Prime Video.
Arctic is a survival drama film starring Mads Mikkelsen that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2018, before being released in cinemas the following year.
It follows a man stranded in the Arctic Circle as he awaits being rescued, living out of his crashed plane.
He’s forced to withstand the brutal weather conditions, with his only hope of being saved coming from a distress beacon, which eventually catches the attention of a helicopter.
However, his chance of recovery fails when the helicopter crashes, with the pilot killed in the accident and the only passenger severely injured.
After raiding the helicopter for any resources and finding a map, he attempts to risk a deadly journey and face polar bears to a refuge, dragging the injured woman behind him, until he eventually leaves her behind, assuming her to be near death.
However, once alone, he suffers his own accident and injures his leg after falling in a glacier crack and trapping it under a boulder.
Returning back to where he left the woman, and finding her still alive, he has one last chance to be saved when seeing a helicopter in the distance and using his last remaining flare to catch its attention.
The film was shot over 19 days in Iceland, and sometimes involved 15-hour long days in the snow, with Mikkelsen revealing the conditions were so severe that doors were ripped off cars.
He described the role as ‘hard psychologically as well. It’s basically being alone, no co-stars to work off; mentally it’s a lonely journey.’
The Danish actor added to Los Angeles Times that he ‘was as thin as I could get, I couldn’t get any skinnier’, and sometimes slept in his blood- and dirt-encrusted makeup to avoid having to put it on again in the morning.
Recalling one scene, he added: ‘We had a big frozen lake I had to walk on, and we didn’t really know how solidly frozen it was, sometimes I could hear the ice crackle, and sometimes I could hear fish splashing underneath the ice.
‘It was extremely scary and extremely beautiful.’
His efforts certainly paid off, with Arctic scoring high praise from critics.
Calum Cooper’s review on Rotten Tomatoes read: ‘Nifty direction results in imagery that’s as breath-taking as it is haunting, an intensity that rocks you to the core, and yet another phenomenal act from Mikkelsen serving as the soul of the film.’
‘ARCTIC is a survival horror movie with a surprisingly warm human heart and understanding of the human soul. It is gripping while not really having an excess of violence or action sequences to fall back on. It is a gem that should not be missed,’ Dolores Quintana said.
Metro’s Tori Brazier wrote: ‘As the linchpin of the film, Overgård requires an actor of Mikkelsen’s calibre in order for an audience to fully identify and sympathise with his struggle – as well as marvel at his ingenuity and integrity.’
Kelechi Ehenulo said: ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if you need a moment to catch your breath after watching Arctic. Joe Penna’s beautifully absorbing film is the ultimate journey of survival.’
‘The best movies transport their audiences to places they may never experience or even want to go. The makers of Arctic go to flabbergasting lengths to tell their harrowing story, giving its audience a massive reward in the process,’ Alex Bentley added.
Arctic is available to watch on Amazon Prime Video.
‘Breath-taking’ survival thriller with 91% on Rotten Tomatoes lands on Amazon Prime Video