Godland Marks a Treacherous Endeavor
Early in Hlynur Pálmason’s Godland, a boy delicately stacks small stones upon one another. The round stones are difficult to balance securely, but the adolescent manages to form a tenuous cairn. A cairn is intended to serve as a waypoint, a signpost to direct one’s travel, and it is surely useful during this small band’s expedition across the Icelandic wilderness to a small village of Danish settlers. But stability is a tricky thing even in the calmest conditions, and the elements of the land and weather have already shown themselves to be tempestuous. This small party will have to cross surging rivers, unfathomably large mountain ranges, barren snowfields, and miry wetlands to reach their destination. Is there any hope that the cairn can ford the changing of such vicious seasons?
Later in the film, Pálmason focuses on the lava flow from a volcano, one of these many threatening elements of Iceland. First, the lava is spewed forth from the hellish crack in the earth. It then converges and flows in rivers, spreading its fingers over the landscape. Where it reaches grass and dirt, it alights in flame and sears this new ground. But as it moves, it slowly hardens, reshaping the very landscape it stretched across. Finally it is cool and still, but the terrain is no longer what it was.
A cairn and lava. These two images bookend Hlynur Pálmason’s Godland as potent metaphors, each representing distinct perspectives of this Icelandic tale. The cairn contrasts the frailty of its protagonist, Lucas (Elliott Crosset Hove), and the immensity of the task before him. Lucas arrives from Denmark to build a church and act as priest for the Danish settlement. He is young and presumptuous, and the journey will break his will long before he arrives. Every aspect of his balance—physical, emotional, spiritual, and psychological—will be proven rather tenuous. Collapse seems only a matter of time.
While Lucas is the center of the film, the hardening lava demands a shift away from his perspective. This image widens our reflection to the relationship between Denmark and Iceland as nations and peoples. As a Danish settler in Iceland, Lucas is part of a bigger endeavor. At this point in history, Iceland was still under Denmark’s control, ruled by the Danish king. The mentality of colonialism is unavoidable: the Danish perceive the land as unruly, the Icelandic language as somewhat beneath them, barbaric, and the people as lacking civility or understanding.
Lucas’ guide, Ragnar (Ingvar Sigurdsson), is the focal point of this mentality. He knows how to brace against the landscape and embrace it, when to submit to it and when to embark across it. Later he confesses that “Danish feels wrong in my throat.” Once the party arrives at the Danish village, however, he is relegated to a subclass. Lucas’ host derides his lack of manners, and Lucas himself begrudges any interaction with Ragnar. Ragnar is empathized, but he is not glorified. He bears a jealous streak and houses the capacity for malice. But it is only when the vicissitudes of Danish prejudice provoke it that they appear.
There’s a dialectic approach woven through the film at every level. Denmark and Iceland. Nature and humanity. Lucas’ naïveté and Ragnar’s hardened posture. Christianity and other ancient ways of living. There’s even a duplication of title cards. Pálmason’s project evokes Bergman and Herzog, alike. Godland is fascinated by the battles between all of these competing forces (and perhaps there’s even a war raging in the title itself, God versus the land).
The film is split in two, as well. The journey marks roughly the first half, followed by the time at the settlement. These never quite balance, however. The craft of Godland is clearer in the first half. The camerawork is geographic and frostbitten. Excruciatingly slow camera movements emphasize the insignificance of the people against the landscape. Sharp, unexpected edits bring shocks of dark and light. Meanwhile the soundscape is frigid and haunting, echoing in the wind.
When the party arrives at the village, the techniques become less effective. Long oners are still used, the camera calmly rotating to cast a tableau, but to less pointed ends. It deflates the film’s potency. This section could be equally engaging if it had a bit more anthropological precision and curiosity. While Pálmason does flesh out Ragnar’s experience further, the emotions between Ragnar, the Danish settlers, and Lucas aren’t explored to the same extent that the Icelandic terrain was previously.
Godland is an impressive film that doesn’t quite fulfill its vision of religious mania and cultural extremes. While the camera’s view of the land is awe inspiring, toward the end I wondered if the film is a little too enamored with Iceland’s beauty and treachery. Pálmason isn’t ultimately able to wrest the same awe or terror from his characters as he finds in the landscape, and that suppresses the film’s force as it tapers. Lucas (as a stand in for Denmark) is chastised for his prideful ideas of what he could accomplish, but it feels like a more pointed conclusion was just out of reach. Lucas’ tale ends inevitably and a bit dully, with only the uncaring landscape to bear witness.
