Writer-director Lucile Hadžihalilović’s The Ice Tower invites comparison to a haunting passage from Dazai Osamu’s No Longer Human. Dazai’s protagonist describes being miles away from home and vomiting blood, which forms “a big rising sun flag in the snow.” Then, as he weeps, the man hears from a distance a little girl saying, “Where does this little path go? Where does this little path go?” It’s one that may as well lead to Hadžihalilović’s film, which abounds in contrasts between blood and snow, among other sensualist pleasures.

Jeanne (Clara Pacini) seems to follow paths wherever they go, without wasting time to wonder where they will take her. She runs away from her foster home in a remote region of France, where her only solace was reading fairy tales to a younger child, Rose (Cassandre Louis Urbain). It’s the 1970s and Jeanne can easily hitchhike...