TIFF22: Godland

“It’s terribly beautiful.” “Yes, it’s terrible. And beautiful.” This exchange between two lovers late in Hlynur Pálmason’s Godland encapsulates so much of this beguiling, beautiful film that pits man against nature and Denmark against Iceland. It’s a film haunted by the power of nature, which takes the form of the breathtaking landscape of Iceland in the height of summer, when the sun never sets, but snow, rain, and howling winds are possible at all times of day. It’s impossible to visit Iceland without being awed and a little terrified of its barren landscape of waterfalls, windswept grasslands, black-sand beaches, and volcanoes along the horizon. These lines and this film speak to that terrible beauty.

An Icelandic and Danish co-production, Godland follows an ambitious young Danish priest, Lucas (Elliott Crosset Hove), in the late 19th century on a trip across Iceland to the site of his new church on the barren southeast coast. Wanting to get to know the people of the island and photograph them with his fancy new wet plate camera, Lucas opts for an over-land trek rather than a voyage by sea. He thinks the extra time and strenuous trekking will allow him to attune his mind, body, and soul to the landscape and its people. How wrong he is.

Unprepared for the harshness of Iceland’s landscape, Lucas is cowed and overwhelmed by the journey. He also does not speak Icelandic and so grows frustrated by his inability to speak with his guides. Lucas survives the journey, but just barely and only because of the skill and fortitude of his no-nonsense Icelandic guide, Ragnar (Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson). The first half of the film chronicles his journey alongside Ragnar and a small team of Icelandic porters. The second half follows Lucas once he reaches his destination on the southeast coast and settles into life alongside a rich Danish farmer, Carl (Jacob Lohmann), and his two daughters, Anna (Vic Carmen Sonne) and Ida (Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir).

There are mysterious powers at work in Godland, not just those of nature. Characters are opaque and driven by instinct and inexplicable urges. There is conflict, but not much plotting, dramatic confrontations, but not climactic explosions of action. The central crux of the film depends on Lucas’s initial fascination with the landscape. He thinks it’s “terribly beautiful.” But that beauty almost kills him and makes him bitter. He channels much of his frustration into a resentment of Ragnar, whom he sees as an embodiment of the harsh landscape. In essence, Lucas is Denmark—well meaning, haughty, weak—while Ragnar is Iceland—rugged, violent, strong.

Pálmason charts Lucas’s journey and his conflict with Ragnar in luscious, rigorously-framed compositions. The film is shot in 35mm and full frame, so the cinematography more closely resembles the wet plate photographs that Lucas takes in the film. Pálmasson and cinematographer Maria von Hausswolff vary their approach to scenes between stationary long takes, naturally-lit closeups, and imposing wide shots of the black rocks, glaciers, and coastline. A shot during a wedding party outside the construction site for the church is particularly stunning, as the camera does a 360-degree pan of the action, capturing the varieties of life and joy and expression in this remote part of the world as people dance, play accordion, wrestle, and drink.

The rigorous precision of photography is also an element of the narrative itself, as the film patiently shows Lucas’s process of taking and developing wet plate photographs. The irony of the film, and of Lucas as a character, is that the taking of a photograph is presented as a more sacred ritual than the actual religious masses in the film. Lucas may be a priest, but for him, art is the best expression of the spirit, and it accidentally reveals the spirit of the land. Thus, Godland becomes a kind of ritual itself, a testament to a landscape and a people and a time and place. Like a film by Terrence Malick or Andrei Tarkovksy, the filmmaking holds spiritual dimensions.

There’s no better evidence of this than the film’s stunning use of time-lapse photography. At key moments in the film, Pálmason cuts away from the action regarding Lucas to show a horse decomposing or a buried body being revealed to the elements by wind and rain. In these moments, concerns, conflicts, characters are stripped away, leaving nothing but a contemplation of the land and time and nature’s dominion. Much like Lucas’s photos within the film, these moments are documents of geography and time, a sacred chronicle of nature and life.

Some viewers may respond to the narrative elements in Godland with attempts to draw out larger meanings about religion and colonization and European hegemony, but I don’t think there’s a unified critique to uncover. Godland is too focused on the particulars of its characters and its time and place in the world and too non-judgmental about their actions to offer a grand statement of condemnation or adoration. In many ways, its perspective is too allied with the natural world to care about human affairs beyond observing them and bearing witness to their struggles.

In this way, the film also shares something with the works of Malick or Werner Herzog. It’s not paying direct homage in narrative elements or stylistic techniques, but shares a naturalistic ethos, one that approaches nature as a character as well as a mysterious power that overwhelms and dominates. Thus, the title is extra fitting. The land does not belong to men, but to God, and like Him, it’s just as mysterious, terrifying, and beautiful.

8 out of 10

Godland (2022, Iceland/Denmark/France/Sweden)

Directed by Hlynur Pálmason; starring Elliott Crosset Hove, Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson, Jacob Lohmann, Vic Carmen Sonne, Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir.

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