Autumn Lights

Autumn Lights examines love while embracing that philosophy of melancholia, and it manages to do so without plunging into tragedy or melodrama. Like the remote region of Iceland where it’s set, the film offers a quiet, thoughtful escape.

Autumn Lights has a hint of Ingmar Bergman about it in intent, setting and title (he made “Autumn Sonata”). But in execution, we can’t tell if this was meant to be an homage or a parody.

The film is like a landlocked Bergman chamber drama divested of any ambivalence regarding human relationships.

[An] empty ponderousness suffocating the film.

American writer-director Angad Aulakh tries to agitate the pensive set-up with sex and a supposed mystery that never raises the pulse. The Bergman-esque posturing falls so far short of the Swedish master that it wouldn’t even qualify as accidental parody.