HOW TO MAKE A MOVIE IN THE COLD

“Listen to your sled dog.” That’s one of the first tips director Peter Flinth learned in making his latest expedition adventure film, Against the Ice. The story is brought to the screen by Flinth and his screenwriters (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Joe Derrick), and stars Coster-Waldau (Game of Thrones) and Joe Cole (Peaky Blinders).

Based on the book Two Against the Ice, a firsthand, nonfiction account by twentieth century Danish explorer Ejnar Mikkelsen of his journey into remote north Greenland, Against the Ice follows Mikkelsen (Coster-Waldau) as he sets off on dog sledges, with just one inexperienced crewmember, Iver Iversen (Joe Cole) on a daring trek to recover the map that proves Greenland belongs to his native territory, Denmark, not to the United States. While Mikkelsen and Iversen found the proof they needed within months, they became stranded in the most extreme of conditions for almost three years. 

“We developed the script in a way where we wanted to be very true to the circumstances the real men were in,” says Flinth, who first read the book over ten years ago. “What I did in my research was to actually travel up on the Northeastern side of Greenland in the footsteps of Ejnar Mikkelsen, to see all the places he had been.” The areas visited were so remote, and with a film production industry just beginning in Greenland, the filmmaker looked for similar landscapes in more accessible parts of the country, as well as in Iceland, where they could shoot the film. 

It was on one of his research trips to Greenland that he learned the importance of sled dogs and of the crew of locals the filmmakers assembled to be their guides to the landscape. “Greenlanders know the country so well, and the nature,” Flinth says. “Greenlandic dogs, sled dogs, would never go onto a piece or a stretch of ice that is not safe. I learned that myself on a research trip a couple of years back. We were going to cross a frozen fjord and suddenly the dogs just took off, turned away. The next day when we passed, it had all opened up into the sea. They knew that the ice was too thin to go across.”

Writer, producer, and star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau was just as passionate as his director that they needed to film this story on location, using all of the elements that Mikkelsen and Iversen had to endure. “We wanted to capture these things, and we were incredibly lucky with the weather. Whatever you see in the movie, everything is as it was. We didn’t want to use any wind machines. As a selfish thing, as an actor, it makes my job easier. I just have to react to whatever happens around me.” 
Coster-Waldau, a Danish actor with family ties to and a lifelong fascination with Greenland, had spent time in these environments, but there were still many surprises to experience when filming on Iceland’s second-largest ice cap, Langjökull. “We had a storm one day while on a glacier. The weather service kept saying, Listen, by noon, it’ll calm down. But it just got worse and worse and worse. We had a video assist man who was sitting a little down the mountain. He was in his van and suddenly rocks came flying through the windows. They had to evacuate us because it was now so dangerous to be on that glacier. It was the first time in my life that I’ve been evacuated from a film set, which was very exciting!” He trusted in his crew and co-producer, the Icelandic Baltasar Kormákur, to make the call when the conditions went from difficult to dangerous. “At one point I was going down towards the camp and the wind took me and it lifted me up like some cartoon, and I was hanging in the air holding onto this truck. They were like, Yeah, it’s a little windy but we’ll keep shooting. I love the Icelanders, they’re so tough.”

The crews in Iceland and Greenland ultimately brought with them a flexibility that was key for the success of the shoot. “They know you cannot schedule weather,” says Flinth. “You cannot schedule the powers of nature.” Due to the lack of control once on the glaciers, Flinth found rehearsals to be crucial. “The most important thing is that you gather and have proper rehearsals with the actors before you go out there. So you sit in a meeting room in a studio and go through the scenes, discuss how we want to stage it, what is important here, what is it all about? You try out the scene before you head out there because when you’re out there, it’s basically, Get it done.”

Once on the glacier, every element on the shoot is affected by the climate. Coster-Waldau found it important to have local caterers while filming in Greenland. “They knew how to make sure that things didn’t freeze up. Just getting hot food for two hours in minus 28 degrees [Celsius] to a crew of 60 people, that is incredibly challenging.” Flinth had to consider how the technology would cope in the extreme temperatures, and he worked with D.P. Torben Forsberg to ensure their Arriflex cameras would function. “We wrapped them in a heating hood to be able to work because the hot disk just literally freezes.” 

After long days out on the ice, Coster-Waldau recognizes that turning in at night was quite different for Mikkelsen and Iversen than it was for his cast & crewmates. “We’re making this movie about these guys and they didn’t get a break for almost three years. We got to go back to some really nice hotels and have a nice cocktail and hang out. At the end of the day, we sat down and shared stories.The thing about being out in 28-below all day, you don’t have problems falling asleep. You sleep; it’s a sound sleep.” 

When the final cut of the film was ready to be screened, Coster-Waldau had one premiere location that he was adamant be set: Greenland’s capital Nuuk. Mikkelsen’s expedition is just part of a long history between Coster-Waldau and Flinth’s home country of Denmark and Greenland, and it was important to the filmmakers that the Greenlandic people get to celebrate the film, from the dog handlers and caterers who worked on the film to the locals who know the story well. Coster-Waldau took the film to Nuuk for a special premiere screening ahead of its Netflix debut. Here he shares what Greenland means to him.

“Since an early age, I’ve always been fascinated by arctic explorers and Greenland. My dad worked at the U.S. Air Force base in Thule in the north of Greenland. He showed me pictures and told me stories of this extreme landscape, the extreme nature, the storms. And it was like this other world — I just had this vivid imagination of what that would be like. Then I happened to fall in love with a woman who is Greenlandic, my wife. And so the first time I went to Greenland was in ’97, I think. That was with my wife, and that was such a massive experience. Coming from Denmark, this small country of islands, we have perfected controlling nature. You never have the sense that nature’s going to overwhelm you at any time.

It’s the opposite in Greenland, of course, where storms will come in. That nature is so beautiful, it’s so impressive, and you have to be very respectful of it. It puts your existence into perspective, which is a healthy thing. It didn’t disappoint even though I imagined it my whole life. But every time I go, it’s always such a great experience. I have a lot of friends and a lot of family up there now and they are such good people.

We were lucky enough to film parts of the movie in Greenland, which was quite the experience. We had to get a hold of 20 or so snowmobiles, a convoy that had to go 2 hours out in the morning, over the mountains, to find locations, and helicopters that would take us out to film in temperatures of minus 28 degrees Celsius. We had this group of locals, some who had experience doing movies, some who didn’t have any experience. For instance, we had two local hunters with their dogs that were doing their first movies, and they were just incredible. The dogs were amazing, although after two takes the dogs clearly were like, ‘No, no, no, we’ve done that already.’ Like a seasoned actor. ‘No, if you didn’t get it, sorry, it’s your fault. I did my best.’ It was challenging on every level but it was also exhilarating because this was what we were hoping for.

This is why it was so special and so important for us to have a big screening in Greenland. It’s a story that not only takes place in Greenland, but in which Greenland is a character itself. It’s also a story that is set in a time when Greenland was a colony of Denmark. That is, thank God, no longer the case. So, on many levels, we wanted to have the screening there to show respect to Greenland and to support a very, very young film industry. They have some amazing talent and some real passion. We were so glad that many of the crew were able to join us in Nuuk for the screening, so that they could see the work we are all so proud of and to celebrate together.”