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Godland (film)

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Godland
International poster
IcelandicVolaða land
DanishVanskabte Land
Directed byHlynur Pálmason
Written byHlynur Pálmason
Produced by
  • Eva Jakobsen
  • Mikkel Jersin
  • Katrin Pors
  • Anton Máni Svansson
Starring
CinematographyMaria von Hausswolff [de]
Edited byJulius Krebs Damsbo
Music byAlex Zhang Hungtai
Production
companies
Distributed by
  • Sena (Iceland)
  • Scanbox Entertainment (Denmark)
  • Folkets Bio (Sweden)
  • Jour2Fête (France)
Release date
  • 24 May 2022 (2022-05-24) (Cannes)
Running time
142 minutes
Countries
  • Iceland
  • Denmark
  • France
  • Sweden
Languages
  • Icelandic
  • Danish
Box office$1.6 million[1]

Godland (Icelandic: Volaða land, Danish: Vanskabte Land, lit. 'Malformed Land') is a 2022 drama film written and directed by Hlynur Pálmason. Set in the late 19th century, the film stars Elliott Crosset Hove as Lucas, a Lutheran priest from Denmark who is sent to Iceland to oversee the establishment of a new parish church, only to have his faith tested and challenged by the harsh conditions of rural life, including his inability as a monolingual Danish-language speaker to communicate with his assigned Icelandic guide, Ragnar (Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson).

The film premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival on 24 May 2022, and was nominated for many and won several awards in 2022, including the Gold Hugo for Best Feature Film at the Chicago Film Festival.

It was selected as the Icelandic entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards, and was one of the 15 finalist films in the December shortlist.[2]

Plot

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In the late 19th century, Danish priest Lucas is tasked with traveling to Iceland (at the time a Danish territory) and building a church in a Danish settlement.[3] He takes a camera to document the land and travels by boat with several Icelandic laborers and a translator, who is Lucas's only ally and connection to the rest of the group. When they arrive, they meet their guide, Ragnar, who harbors a distrust of Danes.

While traveling, the group encounters a deep and raging river that, despite Ragnar's warnings, Lucas insists they ford. Both the translator and a large cross fall off his horses, and the translator drowns. They bury him in a shallow grave that is soon unearthed by the rising tide. Grief-stricken Lucas becomes withdrawn and sullen, praying for God to allow him to return to Denmark. He faints from exhaustion and falls off his horse, and the group has to carry him the rest of the way on a makeshift stretcher. Later, the group is shown to have arrived at the settlement where Lucas is nursed back to health by a man named Carl and his daughters, Anna and Ida.

The village comes together to build the church and celebrates occasions within it. When a couple marries, Lucas refuses to perform the ceremony as the church is yet unfinished. During the wedding reception, traditional wrestling games are played and Carl chooses to go against Lucas, who wins and is then made to fight Ragnar, where there is a palpable tension.

As Lucas befriends Ida and develops an attraction to Anna, his horse goes missing and is later shown to be dead. When the church is completed, Ragnar finds Lucas outside the village and requests that a photo of him be taken before he leaves, but Lucas refuses and insults him. Ragnar makes a confession in Danish, including confirming that he had killed Lucas's horse. Lucas snaps and attacks him, bashing Ragnar's head against the rocks and killing him. Lucas returns to Anna and discards his camera equipment, and the two have sex. Carl warns Anna not to get involved with Lucas.

During Lucas's first service in the finished church, Ragnar's dog interrupts by continuously barking outside. When he goes out to quiet it, he slips in mud and dirties his robes and face. Lucas steals one of Ida's horses and flees. Carl pursues him despite Anna's request that he not harm Lucas. Carl catches up to Lucas and stabs him to death, saying that everyone will believe he simply fell off the horse. Some time later, Ida finds Lucas's skeleton and tearfully tells him that he will soon be part of nature.

Cast and characters

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Production

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The film is a drama, written and directed by Hlynur Pálmason.[7]

Maria von Hausswolff [de] was responsible for the cinematography, for which she won the 2023 Bodil Award for Best Cinematographer.[8]

In the opening of the film, a title card states "A box was found in Iceland with seven wet plate photographs taken by a Danish priest. These images are the first photographs of the southeast coast. This film is inspired by these photographs." However, these images never existed. Hlynur invented the story to help inspire the filmmaking process. As part of the filming, several wet plate photographs were taken, one of which was used for the film's poster.[9][10]

Release

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The film premiered in the Un Certain Regard program of the Cannes Film Festival on 24 May 2022,[7] and had its North American premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival in September.[11]

It was distributed by Sena in Iceland; Scanbox Entertainment in Denmark;[12] Folkets Bio in Sweden;[13] and Jour2Fête in France.[14]

Godland was released in Denmark on 1 December 2022.[15] It was released in cinemas as well as on Curzon Home Cinema in the UK on 7 April 2023,[16] and in Australian cinemas on 17 August 2023.[17]

Reception

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On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 92% of 66 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8/10. The website's consensus reads: "Necessarily bleak but shot through with moments of humor, the beautifully filmed Godland serves as a gently absorbing meditation on mortality."[18] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 81 out of 100, based on 21 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[19]

Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave it five out of five stars, calling it "an extraordinary film... breathtaking in its epic scale, magnificent in its comprehension of landscape, piercingly uncomfortable in its human intimacy and severity". He wrote that it brings to mind such films as Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Roland Joffé's The Mission, among others.[16] Paul Byrnes of The Sydney Morning Herald called it "bone-chilling, eye-dazzling, heart-wrenching... and one of the best films of the year".[17]

Awards

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The film was selected as Denmark's 2022 submission for the Nordic Council Film Prize.[20]

The film and its director were nominated for many awards and won several of them, including:[8]

Hlynur Pálmason won the Edda Award for Best Director at the Icelandic Edda Awards in 2023.[8]

Maria von Hausswolff won the Silver Hugo for cinematography, Bodil Award for Best Cinematographer, and Best Cinematography at the Edda Awards.[8]

Elliott Crosset Hove won the Bodil Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role.[8]

See also

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Footnotes

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  1. ^ Real-life daughter of the director, Hlynur Pálmason.[4][5][6]

References

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  1. ^ "Godland (2022)". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved 31 March 2023.
  2. ^ Bergeson, Samantha (21 December 2023). "2024 Oscar Shortlists Unveiled: 'Barbie,' 'Poor Things,' 'Maestro,' and 'The Zone of Interest' Make the Cut". IndieWire. Retrieved 22 December 2023.
  3. ^ Stephanie Bunbury, "Cannes Review: Hlynur Palmason’s 'Godland'". Deadline Hollywood, 27 May 2022.
  4. ^ Mitchell, Wendy (25 August 2023). "Hylnur Palmason on his Iceland-set Critics' Week selection 'A White, White Day'". Screen Daily. Retrieved 25 August 2023.
  5. ^ "A White, White Day with writer-director Pálmason". Arkansas Online. 1 May 2020. Retrieved 25 August 2023.
  6. ^ McDonald, John (17 July 2020). "Film review: A White, White Day". Australian Financial Review. Retrieved 25 August 2023.
  7. ^ a b Peter Debruge, "Godland' Review: Almighty Iceland Puts a Weak Danish Priest's Faith to the Test". Variety, 24 May 2022.
  8. ^ a b c d e "Godland (2022) - Awards". IMDb. 24 August 2023. Retrieved 24 August 2023.
  9. ^ Lumholdt, Jan (26 May 2022). "Hlynur Pálmason • Director of Godland". cineuropa.org. cineuropa. Retrieved 5 January 2023.
  10. ^ "Bodilprisen 2023: Vinderne". Bodilprisen (in Danish). Retrieved 12 December 2023.
  11. ^ Jeremy Kay, "Toronto unveils 2022 TIFF Docs, Contemporary World Cinema line-ups". Screen Daily, 17 August 2022.
  12. ^ "Vanskabte Land / Volaða Land - Danmörk; Norrænt samstarf".
  13. ^ "Godland". Folkets Bio.
  14. ^ "GODLAND – jour2fête".
  15. ^ "Icelandic director Hlynur Pálmason talks about his new film, Godland". Icelandair. 10 December 2022. Retrieved 24 August 2023.
  16. ^ a b Bradshaw, Peter (6 April 2023). "Godland review – beauty and terror in magnificent study of church-building priest". the Guardian. Retrieved 24 August 2023.
  17. ^ a b Byrnes, Paul (16 August 2023). "Godland review: Inspired by something which never existed, Godland is one of the best films this year". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 24 August 2023.
  18. ^ "Godland". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved 6 October 2023. Edit this at Wikidata
  19. ^ "Godland". Metacritic. Fandom, Inc. Retrieved 13 September 2023.
  20. ^ Wendy Mitchell, "Nordic Council Film Prize reveals five nominees for $40,000 award". Screen Daily, 23 August 2022.
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