It proved to be a perfect, rewarding substitution.
The story was apparently inspired (according to the film’s opening credits) by the supposed discovery in Iceland of seven glass-plate photographs of people and places taken there in the late 1800s – something reflected by the small, square format of the cinema screen.
It’s a film of austere harshness, beauty and some terror – all stunningly captured visually.
Elliott Crosset Hove plays Lucas, a highly-strung young clergyman instructed by his bishop to travel to a pioneer community in Iceland (then a Danish dependency), oversee the construction of a church-building and install himself as parish priest. It’s perilous journey first by sea with horses (taking among his luggage a huge and burdensome cross and his bulky tripod-mounted camera equipment), climbing mountains and fording rivers with it. It’s a journey he could have taken almost entirely by sea, but Lucas is determined to experience more. It proves to be one of hardship and physical pain.
The film has some wonderful characters: Lucas’s tough, disapproving Icelandic guide, Ragnar (Ingvar Sigurdsson); level-headed widower/host Carl (Jacob Lohmann) and his two daughters, the eldest Anna (who he suspects Lucas has designs on) and the younger Ida (amusingly played by Ida Mekkin Hlynsdottir).
It’s quite a long film (143 minutes), but I found that the time just flew by… I was completely absorbed and entranced. The landscape is dauntingly breath-taking; the music hauntingly beautiful; and the storyline and the interplay of the characters utterly mesmerising.
I really think you should try to see it. I thought it was rather wonderful.
Will I see a better film this year? Probably not.
No comments:
Post a Comment