Our favourite film of the ‘Un Certain Regard’ section, Hylnur Pálmason’s Godland, delivers his visceral epic in a landscape hellish diary of a travelling priest.
Hlynur Pálmason has now premiered his latest feature, Godland, at the Un Certain Regard section at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. He has now marked himself to be reckoned with in the international film scene representing Iceland. His first two features, The Winter Brothers and A White, White Day, premiering at the 2017 Locarno (Golden Leopard Competition) and 2019 Cannes (Critics Week Competition) Film Festival respectively were quite standouts, but due to his idiosyncratic style and homeland, wasn’t as widely appreciated, but it was only a matter of time he got an upgrade to Cannes’ Official Selection status. Another loyal and interesting fact is that four of the five leads in Godland starred in his first two features (Elliott Crosset Hove and Vic Carmen Sonne in The Winter Brothers; Ingvar Sigurdsson and Pálmason’s daughter Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir in A White, White Day). With all three of his films touching about masculinity and revenge; his latest, Godland, uses the geographic landscape of Iceland as backdrop of his terrorizing and religious tale of vengeance.
Inspired by a set of images found in the late 19th century along the coast of Southeast Iceland, Lucas (Elliott Crosset Hove), a Danish priest is set aboard with a crew including the woodworker/carpenter, Ragnar (Ingvar Sigurdsson), on a journey to build a church on a newly found Icelandic Island. Stunning 35mm photography capturing the textures of the whitest of white snow and the forest greens in academy ratio, Pálmason and cinematographer, Maria von Hausswolff, both focus on center symmetry on objects and vast, long landscapes photography depicting the unknown land they are enduring. As their journey begins, lives are lost due to the harsh climates, livestock, and unpreparedness of this weeks-long trip. Ragnor, the raggedy tough Icelander man, sees the moral flaws of the priest in Lucas and the dynamic is evident between the two. They eventually finish their journey weeks later at the home of an Icelandic family, Carl and his two daughters, Anna (Vic Carmen Sonne) and Ida (Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir), where a church is under construction.
As the church construction continues, Carl is not too keen on the priest as well, placing a stereotype of older men in this film. The day-to-day life includes riding horses, preparing the animals for food and farming, wandering the land, and church business. These activities are like clockwork to everyone, but Lucas, who is still getting used to this land and lifestyle, where previously mentioned by his superior priest, that not many priests make it back on this pilgrimage due to the intensity of all factors. The brawly, blue-collared men looking down on the new hopeful and faithful purity of Lucas could be seen as the main theme of the film. The two daughters get a liking towards Lucas as he appears to be beneficial and kind, but behind closed doors, troubled and nuanced. These factors play into the whole dynamic of each of the character as each begin to build relationships each other and open up, but Lucas, the center of the characters begin to lose faith in others and himself. Ragnor is increasingly frustrating Lucas with good intentions that Lucas can’t shake off, and Carl is on his toes about Lucas’ suspicious behavior. These two men begin the downfall for Lucas as Lucas and Anna begins an intimate relationship and Lucas having a friendly, wholesome relationship with the youngest daughter, Ida. As the ticking time-bomb is beginning to implode, Lucas’s faith is questioned by the oldest binary expression of time, nature vs nurture?
Transitioning through months and seasons through still shots in short duration skips, we see landscape, animal carcass, and buildings change over time in sprawling shot. These decisions to show time skips emphasize the theme of this fictionalized stories. What man does or how he handles time out of his control is a true testament of his morals and flaws. Although there are some formulaic or predictive choices in terms of the trajectory of Carl and Ragnor, the confidence Pálmason has in his filmmaking is nothing to doubt. From his care of slow building his atmosphere to the terror arising from Lucas within, Pálmason balance of aesthetic pleasures and storytelling compliment each other. He plays with the form in multiple non-conventional ways such as 360 camera movement, sudden cuts to nature, and nightmare-ish flashbacks pushing the dread and eeriness of it all. It’s exciting to see filmmakers you appreciate on an upward path in their filmography, and Hylnur Pálmason has arrived as a singular artist making his own path.
