A Pilgrimage to Cinema

"Godland", the new film by Icelandic filmmaker Hlynur Pálmason, is rife with contradictions. The English international title suggests a blessed or divine land, a place that has been converted into a bastion of religious worship and adoration. Whereas the literal translation of the Icelandic or Danish title is "wretched land", which is a more apt description of the place depicted in the film. Visually speaking, "Godland" is a showcase of 19th-century rural Iceland's majestic beauty, with its landscapes, hills, snowscapes, falls, river and sea. Never has this specific Nordic geography been better captured on film. And yet, it is this same beauty that imposes some cruel challenges and impediments on the fulfillment of a religious mission. Nature can indeed be terrifying. Regarding the film's main character, a young Danish Lutheran priest named Lucas (Elliott Crosset Hove), his mission and intention of setting up a church in a foreign land may seem nob...