Two 17 year olds have grown up together like brothers in a remote village of Alaska. One day, they go hunting sea lions with another third teen. A quarrel takes place, and a tragic incident takes place that will entirely change the two boys’ lives. An ambitious work by Alaska-born director MacLean, [On The Ice] was scouted for this year’s Berlin Film Festival. A superb panorama of lands, skies, and icebergs across a vast open space is framed within a series of extraordinarily beautiful images. Based upon the director’s own experience, the film realistically shows mysterious life in the region and offers pleasure of viewing it. Although the lives that the protagonists enjoy in Alaska are incomparable to anywhere else in the world, their psyches are not really different from that of any other teenager. The film is a character-orientated thriller questioning the limits on friendship and forgiveness. (RHEE, Soue-won