Vanskabte Land (2022)
Genre: Drama
Duration: 138 minuten
Alternative titles: Godland / Volaða Land
Country:
Denmark / Iceland / France / Sweden
Directed by: Hlynur Palmason
Stars: Hilmar Guðjónsson, Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir and Elliott Crosset Hove
IMDb score:
7,1 (9.537)
Releasedate: 1 December 2022
Vanskabte Land plot
In the late 1800s, a young Danish priest travels to a remote place in Iceland. He wants to build a church there and capture the local inhabitants on camera. The more he ventures into the brutal nature reserve, the more he deviates from his mission and standards and values.
Actors and actresses
Lucas
Anna
Ragnar
Carl
Vincent
Translator
Friðrik
Gunnar
Accordion player
Reviews & comments
De filosoof
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- 2487 messages
- 1698 votes
I could appreciate earlier films by this director, but I found this film to be soporific. First you watch for over an hour a group of men traveling on horses through Iceland to their destination without drama - they slaughter an animal, they sing a song, etc - and then they are suddenly in the inhabited world with houses, more people (with especially women) and luxury but the activities remain essentially the same (slaughter an animal, sing a song, etc). The goal of the mission (building a church before winter) is achieved: on a more personal level, there are suddenly two dramatic twists towards the end that, however, come out of the blue, so without you knowing it gets the feeling that this is the necessary conclusion of the more than two hours of extremely boring film before.
There will be meanings in the movie that I missed; it seems to be mainly about the difference between Denmark as a civilization (and Danish as the language of the church) and Iceland as a nature that as such is more connected to the sinfulness and transience of man. The translation of the title is striking: Iceland is clearly the 'difficult' country, but I think the English Godland refers more to Denmark, while Iceland is the country forsaken by God, so that the church was built but the mission is spiritually doomed to failure.
Translated from Dutch · View original
hvdriel
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- 397 messages
- 357 votes
The movie starts off promising. In the conversation with his superior, priest Lucas learns about the hardships that await him on his mission in Iceland: volcanic eruption, high water in rivers, approaching winter and wild nature. On the boat there he learns the different Icelandic words for rain, notices that he cannot remember them all and concludes that the Icelanders apparently cannot choose. The Danish language against the Icelandic, Denmark against Iceland.
I sat down and was glad that the subtitler gave me a helping hand: Icelandic was subtitled in cursive, which is handy because I can't hear the difference between the two languages. But slowly I slid back in my chair. The round-shaped 4:3 image translated into an angular (read triple-step-jump) montage, the journey to the intended village (where I discovered only 1 house, by the way) was depicted fragmentarily, and neither tension nor relaxation was visible between the eight travelers although the death of the interpreter (sic) could give every reason to do so.
We're halfway through, and the film still had my waning sympathy, but it vanished like the snow that hadn't yet fallen. It may be that I do not understand the subtleties that undoubtedly play out between Iceland and Denmark, I may not be able to connect the anecdotes and songs told, in any case I could not do much with the clumsy priest who in the village meets civilization, of course is seduced by the eldest daughter there and who compensates for his own inability to know people and country in the late 19th century by taking pictures of it (which is a nice image).
'It will be all right' is the feeling with which I left the room after 140 minutes. And that is too little.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Drulko Vlaschjan
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- 495 messages
- 432 votes
Quite strong in itself, but I found it significantly less than the previous two films by Hlynur Palmason. It's all a little less ambiguous, what you see is what you get. But although it took me a bit too long and some plot twists came out of the blue, I still found it enjoyable.
In the first half, not the characters, but Iceland played the leading role. All looked beautiful. And also quite horrible, you would walk there, say, in the nineteenth century, with those silent men who don't speak your language.
The second half was a bit smoother, although the pace remained fairly slow. I was pleased to see another one of those moments where some of the characters passed us by, standing still, mostly looking straight at the camera. That's a bit of Palmason's trademark, nice how you put your signature under such a film with something like that.
Translated from Dutch · View original
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