By Caspar Salmon

After the international acclaim for his second film A White, White Day (2019), Hlynur Pálmason returns with Godland, a film of extraordinary craft and power. The film’s considerable virtues, which range from breathtaking landscape photography to inhabited performances from a flawless cast, show Pálmason to be working at the height of his powers.

Drawing inspiration from late-19th century photos of Icelandic countryfolk taken in a remote outcrop of the island, Godland centres on Lucas (Elliott Crosset Hove), a Danish priest and amateur photographer who has undertaken a trip across Iceland to establish a parish by the sea. To assist him in his arduous journey, Lucas enlists a Danish-Icelandic translator, various horse-boys, and a rough-edged guide, Ragnar (Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson), with whom the mild-mannered preacher enters into a low-simmering feud. The film essentially contains two separate halves, of which the first is the group’s difficult procession through churning rivers and over icy mountains, while the second takes place in the tiny village where Lucas and his remaining acolytes wash up. The film’s subject matter recalls Oscar and Lucinda a little, There Will Be Blood somewhat too, for its tale of single-minded settlers driven to a species of madness. In the case of Godland (the title is bitterly ironic), the crisis comes from the dogma of faith rubbing up against the imperious lawlessness of nature.