Formerly Known As Cinema

IMAGE COURTESY OF JANUS FILMS

“There are many ways to say shut your mouth in Icelandic. Just like there are many ways to describe bad weather.”

And the translator (Hilmar Guðjónsson, “Wild Game”) who speaks these lines in Hlynur Pálmason’s awe-inspiring new film, “Godland”, isn’t kidding around: early on, during a particularly rough sea voyage, the translator’s student, a taciturn priest named Lucas (Elliott Crosset Hove, “Winter Brothers”), fights hard not to barf over the side of the ship while being tested on the eighteen different words for ‘rain’.

The first half of “Godland” recounts a perilous trek through the frozen, mountainous landscape of 19th century Iceland where a Lutheran priest from Denmark has been sent to oversee the building of a new church.

IMAGE COURTESY OF JANUS FILMS

This is a journey where conflicts of man versus environment are usurped by conflicts between the Danish holy man and the Icelandic laborers charged with getting him to his destination. And it nearly kills the priest who, saddled with a heavy camera tripod and a box of glass plates so he can get photographic documentation of the land and people, has no idea how treacherous and unforgiving the trip will be.

His foolhardy decision to ford a raging river — after being warned to wait a few days by the Dane-hating guide Ragnar (Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson, “The Northman”) — leads to catastrophe. As does his reluctance to ever learn the basics of horsemanship (every horse he comes near seems to instantly suffer from the equine version of a panic attack).

This theme of religious hubris in the face of unforgiving nature plays marvelously against Maria von Hausswolff’s crystalline cinematography.

With its gorgeous vistas of snow and mountains, lush verdant cliffs and blazing orange lava flows — all lit by Iceland’s midnight sun which bathes everything in the eldritch glow of “magic hour” — “Godland” is easily the most beautiful film of the year.

And God bless the actors who throw themselves into the physical hardships of location shooting with an almost religious fervor.

Whether they’re climbing precipitous crags, trudging through waist-high snow, leading horses across rushing icy rivers or engaging in fierce hand-to-hand combat, their level of commitment gives a documentary-style ‘you are there’ realism to the harrowing events on screen.

Hove, as the messianic priest, has some especially risky moments, including one where he falls sideways off a moving horse and slides down a ten-foot gulley, and another where he slips on a steep path and lands face first in the mud.

IMAGE COURTESY OF JANUS FILMS

Equally harrowing is the amount of weight Hove loses over the first half of the film. His bearded, robust adventurer becomes little more than a walking skeleton by the time he arrives at the bucolic village at the top of the world.

The second half of “Godland” moves effortlessly into romantic territory as Lucas meets Carl (Jacob Loehman, “Enforcement”) and his two daughters, Anna (Vic Carmen Sonne, “Winter Brothers”) and Ida (Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir, “A White, White Day”) who live in a cozy house filled with all the delicate accoutrements of civilization: fine China, glassware, a piano.

It’s here that the simmering tensions of the movie’s first half threaten to erupt into violence: As the church nears completion, grudges, secrets and betrayals come to the surface, providing the last twenty minutes of the movie with moments of genuine shock.

The ending is perhaps too expansive in how it ties up a plot which didn’t need tying up in the first place. Still, it manages to evoke real admiration, even awe.

And the performances, from the lead actors right down to the horses, are perfectly pitched. (With a special mention for the marvelously emotive Svanavatns Jökull Darri as Ragnar’s loyal hound whose plaintive bark provides the movie with a literary callback to Poe’s “The Telltale Heart”).

But it’s Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson as the alchemical Ragnar who makes the most profound impression.

Starting out like an Icelandic version of John Wayne in Howard Hawks’ “Red River”, Ragnar slowly reveals, with each passing scene, yet another layer of unexpected character development. And near the end, just when we think we’ve got him figured out, writer Pálmason provides him with a jaw-dropping monologue that leaves us shaken and gasping for air.

Watching a great film provides the kind of redemptive exhilaration that makes sitting through hours of other, less delightful movies worthwhile.

Sometimes all it takes is one scene to realize you are in the company of a consummate artist who’s in full glorious control of their story, utilizing all the elements at their disposal to keep us leaning into the film, breathless with anticipation.

IMAGE COURTESY OF JANUS FILMS

And Director Hlynur Pálmason, with his imaginative use of color, his combination of candlelit interiors and vertiginous nature-photography, his stunning elegant pans across the horizon — including a 360 degree shot of a village wedding that is a whole movie in itself — and the confidence to include a few Bressonian ellipses that artfully fast-forward the action, easily sets himself head and shoulders above the rest of the field.

Like an unexpected gift from heaven, “Godland” provides a tense and heart pounding experience in artistic fulfillment. Like watching a gymnastic routine where every landing is stuck.

STREAMING ON THE CRITERION CHANNEL

An LA-based playwright, JUSTIN TANNER has more than twenty produced plays to his credit, including Voice Lessons, Day Drinkers, Space Therapy, Wife Swappers, and Coyote Woman. His Pot Mom received the PEN-West Award for Best Play.

He has written for the TV shows Gilmore Girls, My So-Called Life and the short-lived Love Monkey. He wrote, directed and edited 88 episodes of the web series Ave 43, available on YouTube.

Tanner is the current Playwright in Residence for the Rogue Machine Theatre in Hollywood, where his new play Little Theatre, of December of 2022, was met with rave reviews. Charles McNulty of the LA Times writes, "Engrossing... a comedy à clef... “Little Theatre” is invaluable.'"