How to retain moments of happiness that do not seem so

Any image – whether static or moving – captured for posterity of some more or less prosaic family activity has thermal memory. As if they were the embers of a past that never quite goes out, photos of loved ones in a physical album or in the mobile's image and video gallery retain an intangible but undeniable charm and warmth. Looking at them is like finding some of those little things Serrat sang about in his song: they make us cry when no one sees us.

Starting from this idea of capturing with a camera records that in the future may have a high sentimental or symbolic value, even if they were innocent or casual images at the time, the Icelandic director Hlynur Pálmason constructs the meaning of the images inThe love that remains. That's why it sometimes freezes the plan or makes it look like a reel of Instagram, or for characters to pose for the lens. It is capturing moments of a story in which happiness will appear as a delayed effect. Or perhaps sadness will appear. Because for the divorced couple with three children who star in this film, these formally underlined moments will be the vestiges of a lost happiness.

As we already saw in the notable A white, white day or Godland, Pál Mason is a filmmaker with a strong yet subtle aesthetic sense: the images of the Icelandic landscape ofThe love that remains are powerful and evocative without being postcard-like. In any case, their visual imagination is more versatile than we thought because, unlike their previous work, here they include touches of fantasy or disconcerting comedy that show they are a creator who is never content with just being beautiful. It must be made significant: the final shot of a character floating in the water beautifully explains feelings of loneliness or disorientation after a separation.