I seem to be attracted to films about the colonialism/religion nexus at the moment. Where The New Boy, was set in the baking Australian outback, with Godland we are taken to Iceland, where a young Danish priest Lucas is sent to the island of Iceland as part of the extension of Danish influence. He doesn't speak the language, so he is allotted a translator, but when the translator dies he is left under the care of his Icelandic guide, Ragnar. He is a photographer, and he takes with him his cumbersome camera equipment, and the legs of the tripod appear like a form of spired cathedral on his back. They also cart with them a heavy wooden cross (just like in The New Boy) but the cross is lost. The Icelandic villagers are mainly hostile towards this Danish imposition, and Lucas despises the boorishness of the Icelanders. The film is shot in an aspect ratio that gives it the appearance of a square on the screen, and I was reminded of watching a slideshow (fitting, given Lucas' interest in photography). It's beautifully filmed, but oh so bleak and isolated, and the film itself is very slow. I don't know whether it was the stark photography, or whether the airconditioning in the theatre was too high, but I came out chilled to the bone.
My rating: 3 stars.
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