Mercy

Hammerfest is a Norwegian town on the edge of the Arctic Ocean at the country’s most north westerly tip. Between 22 November and 21 January the sun doesn’t even make it over the horizon. This small town caught in an icy reverie somewhere between black night and permanent twilight is now home to a German couple and their son. Niels is an engineer working at a natural gas liquefying plant based on a tiny island opposite Hammerfest. Maria, a nurse at a hospice for the fatally ill, has decided to join her husband here to support this important career move. The couple seems to have adapted well to this shadowy and sometimes surreal nocturnal world. But one day on her way home from work Maria is involved in an accident; she appears to have run over someone or something. Unable to face up to the situation, she panics and rushes back home. As events take their course this throws up some fundamental questions: is it possible to live your life without mercy or the ability to forgive? An intimate melodrama, told in stunningly cinematic images. –Berlinale