Godland

Hlynur Pálmason (A White, White Day) delivers a breathtakingly inventive and ambitious historical epic, set in mid-19th-century Iceland. A young Danish priest is sent to a remote Icelandic outpost to establish a church. Convinced of his moral purpose and fortitude, he travels via the most treacherous route to document the country’s stark beauty with his silver plate photography. It’s a dangerous crossing, guided by locals who disdain their Danish colonisers. Godland is a film to be savoured on the big screen. Shot with a sumptuous square image and soft rounded corners, Pálmason detours to capture exploding volcanoes, a decaying horse carcass and landscapes that shift from fecund to frosty. The result is part-travelogue, part-western, part-austere Nordic drama in the tradition of Bergman and Dreyer. Craggy Elliot Crossett Hove (Winter Brothers, LFF 2017) mesmerises as the priest; an awkward, soft-bellied fellow, transformed by hardship into a steelier version of himself, who might not necessarily be a force for good.