In Lucile Hadžihalilović 's hands, a mirror is a dangerous thing. Real mirrors, metaphysical mirrors, mirrors that go both ways. The Ice Tower , which is loosely inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen , is nothing if not a meditation on perception. It looks at how we perceive ourselves, how others perceive us, and how those directions are often interchangeable. So, too, may be the very title of the film. Glace, in French, can mean either ice or mirror.

For Jeanne (Clara Pacini), a 15-year-old orphan girl, an attuned self-perception may come at a cost. Spending much of her days climbing into the snow-covered mountains that dot the backyard of the orphanage at which she stays, Jeanne dreams of leaving the isolation of her claustrophobic, overcrowded confinement. She

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