An intimate ensemble portrait of a small island community threatened by rising sea levels, As the Tide Comes In is a mournfully beautiful audiovisual poem from Basque-born, Copenhagen-based director-cinematographer Juan Palacios and his Danish co-director, visual anthropologist Sofie Husum Johannesen. Filmed over more than two years, with the symphonic shifts between seasons visible in almost every frame, this ravishing documentary counterpoints tragicomic human drama with painterly depictions of majestically lonely landscapes, often invoking the spirit of Terrence Malick in his prime.
World premiered at IDFA in Amsterdam this week, against the backdrop of a huge protest march demanding climate change action, As the Tide Comes In manages to be both timeless and timely, specific and universal. High production values, engagingly eccentric characters and headline-grabbing themes should ensure it has plenty more festival traction, awards potential and wider audience appeal.
As the Tide Comes In was shot on Mandø, a tiny low-lying island nestled in the northern section of the Wadden Sea, a string of coastal wetlands and mudflats that stretches from Holland to Denmark. Designated a world heritage site by UNESCO for its biodiversity, the area is also prone to catastrophic floods that have historically left thousands dead and even erased entire villages, including the original Mandø settlement back in the 17th century. With rising tides and increasingly extreme weather events caused by global warming, populations in this region have understandably dwindled as families leave for the safety of the mainland. The island’s official population has been shrinking for centuries, and was listed as just 31 in January 2022.
If there is a notional protagonist among the film’s collective cast it is Gregers Jorgensen, a taciturn farmer who once dreamed of leaving Mandø to become a pilot. Now a firmly entrenched fixture in his forties, he is the island’s youngest resident. A bluff, boozy, chain-smoking loner, Gregers patrols the desolate coastal landscape with just his faithful dog Sif for company. Wry conversations with his elderly parents and weather-beaten drinking buddies suggest he has lived a life of romantic disappointment, thwarted ambition and creeping bitterness. In a bleakly funny side plot, he applies to star in the Danish reality TV dating show Farmer Wants a Wife only to be rejected in favour of a far more eligible, telegenic candidate.
As Palacios and Johannesen show, Mandø attracts hordes of sightseers in summer, most perched on giant tour-bus trailers adapted to navigate the perilous umbilical causeway that intermittently connects the island to the mainland. But most of the remaining full-time residents are now elderly hold-outs who have spent their entire lives in this remote rural backwater. Another key figure in As the Tide Comes In is Mie Leverentz, a remarkable woman whose 99th and 100th birthday celebrations serve as loose temporal markers in the film’s free-flowing chronology. Perhaps inevitably, many of these older characters pass away during the production period, earning memorial dedications in the end credits.
There is a staged quality to many of the vignettes in As the Tide Comes In, which often feels more like artful docu-drama than pure documentary. Palacios and Johannesen admit they spent a long time embedded with the islanders, steering and shaping the narrative towards “carefully planned spontaneity” where possible. They are not above using discreet visual effects too, notably a theatrically outsized moon that becomes a recurring motif, filling the sky over Mandø. Peter Albrechtsen’s superb sound design also plays a key role, weaving a rich background tapestry of elemental weather and animal noises around Morten Svenstrup’s elegiac, brass-heavy score.
As the Tide Comes In sprinkles a faint patina of magical realism over its observational documentary elements, painting Mandø as an otherworldly Midsummer Night’s Dream of a place. Mysterious red lights dance through the trees, mesmerising murmurations of birds swirl across the heavens above, an antique vinyl record salvaged from the wetlands conveniently contains nostalgic folk songs about the island, and so on. But these lyrical touches are judiciously applied, never feeling too contrived or whimsical. This isle is full of noises, stunning sights and strange characters. Palacios and Johannesen merely place a frame around them with this gorgeous, absorbing meditation on the terrifying beauty of Mother Nature.
Director, cinematography: Juan Palacios
Co-director: Sofie Husum Johannesen
Editing: Nicolas Norgaard Staffolani
Music: Morten Svenstrup
Sound design: Peter Albrechtsen
Producers: Andreas Dalsgaard, Kasper Lykke Schultz
Production company, world sales: Elk Film (Denmark)
Venue: IDFA (International Competition)
In Danish
89 minutes