Nature can be bleak and beautiful. While the fates of the film’s characters are foregrounded in austere conditions, the viewer is treated to majestic scenery throughout Godland, the third feature from Copenhagen-based Icelandic writer-director Hlynur Pálmason. The film has one foot in each of Pálmason’s two homes, as a Danish priest named Lucas (Elliott Crosset Hove) is charged with traversing the Icelandic wilderness to build a church for a small community in the late 19th century. He doesn’t speak the local language, rides horses poorly and seems ill-equipped for the rigors of the journey. After making poor decisions along the way and suffering many dark nights of the soul, he must be physically dragged, near death, to his destination.
Once there, Lucas’ physical condition may improve after his guide, Ragnar (Ingvar Sigurdsson), leaves him to convalesce in the home of Carl (Jacob Lohmann), and his two daughters, Anna (Vic Carmen Sonne) and Ida (ĺda Mekkín Hlynsdóttir), but his mental and spiritual condition is another matter. He’s not a good fit for this new home, and even as his church is gradually erected, he’s standoffish and aloof. To make matters worse, Carl manipulates the situation. He pits Lucas against Ragnar, both of whom he disrespects, and he also forbids his daughter Anna from pursuing the minister romantically, something she’s clearly set on doing as a rare source for Lucas to experience a fleeting glimmer of joy. What results in a so-called man of faith suffering from spiritual doubt and existential crisis, as masculine aggression and interpersonal ugliness is juxtaposed with breathtaking natural splendor.
For the men in this film, sexuality itself is often a thing to be feared, as Ragnar tells a lengthy story during the initial trek about an orgy of mating eels writhing in mud and squealing in pleasure as a woman in the throes of passion might. When Anna acts affectionately toward Lucas, he tenses up in response, and perhaps for good reason, as Carl is unsettlingly possessive of his daughter.
The overarching theme of Godland, however, is one of existentialism. “I am convinced we are all very small and fleeting,” Carl tells Lucas at a turning point in the film, adding that what any one person happens to think, or by extension feel, really doesn’t matter. Lucas may never exude great faith or passion for serving his fellow human beings—or even display much empathy for them, as he’s so wrapped up in his own despair—but the lone passion in his life seems to be photography. He lugs the heavy wooden rig for his wet-plate photography on his back throughout much of the film, but even this source of pleasure ends up akin to the burden carried by Christian in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.
Pálmason frames his film in 1.33:1 aspect ratio to both align with the squarish view Lucas might see through his camera and to mirror how the priest feels boxed in even amid a sprawling, picturesque countryside. Futile attempts to capture the ephemera of life in still images—with photography of the time requiring a subject to remain unnaturally still for a length of time—motivate Lucas when little else does. (Opening text shares that, in fact, the film was inspired by 19th-century images of the Icelandic wilderness captured by a traveling priest.)
Elsewhere, compelling editing illustrates the unyielding churn of time. One sequence, involving a bevy of brief shots of a horse carcass in various states of decomposition set against various weather conditions and natural lighting, is particularly striking, but Maria von Hausswolff’s cinematography brims with such visually affecting moments throughout the entire film. Sparse as it is narratively, Godland is a feast for the senses, as the film’s sense of unease is magnified by long stretches of natural sounds taking on a foreboding tone, such as a lengthy shot of a vacant field thrumming with insect noises. And with an unnerving score provided by Alex Zhang Hungtai (aka Dirty Beaches), there’s a sense of disquiet the pervades the film even before acts of violence inevitably occur.
Godland’s glacial pace and unforgiving bleakness would make an experience to be endured more than enjoyed, if not for the striking natural imagery on display throughout. At one point, the film’s youngest character, Ida, speaks to the cyclical nature of life and death, how death and decomposition allow for new life to grow. And it’s in this way that Godland is at its most thematically effective, as it contrasts the relative inconsequentiality of one person’s existence against the backdrop of natural processes that are essentially eternal. It’s simply a matter of perspective whether we fear this fact or appreciate its unforgiving beauty.
Photo courtesy of Janus Films
The post Godland appeared first on Spectrum Culture.