Godland’s cover on both the Criterion website and Criterion Channel listings has been staring at me for a long time. That image has been seared in for a while and I have wanted to watch since I first saw it. This movie, as many do, scared me. It looked like I needed a lot of time and energy to make sure I watched it correctly. I think that was both the right read, and a bit incorrect. This did take energy, and it was a bit long. However, it was impossible not to be completely drawn in by the beauty. It’s indescribable, really. Iceland is magnificent.
I watched over two days, and that might have been a mistake. I think I missed some key interactions that would explain Lucas’s relationship with Ragnar, and the ultimate demise of Ragnar for a seemingly mild transgression — or at least a transgression that escalated very, very quickly.
Lucas’s plight grabbed me for a particular reason. His turn from well-meaning, if arrogant and naive, to evil hinged on his traumatic experience with his overland travel. I have some experience with that sort of travel, having lived on a glacier for a couple weeks once, and with some stints of multiple days mixed in. I have had traumatic experiences in those situations, and I have even felt close to what we saw Lucas experience when he went into his catatonic state and had to be nursed back. I haven’t seen someone die. I have had to stop and take care of myself. I’ve had to quit because I was unable to go on. I also had the privilege of an easy return to the rest of society. Lucas did not have that. He awoke to continued harsh living, and continued to harbor a dislike of Ragnar, despite Ragnar’s evolution from distrustful to curious about Lucas’s faith.
In the end, Lucas lost all control. He couldn’t stick around and deal Wirth either what he had done or what he was facing. His death at the hands of Marc (I hated that smug asshole) was probably justified, despite no one knowing what he’d done. And his return to the earth, with the blessing of Ida solidifies that place as a land of God.
The other thing I’ll mention is the beauty of the movie. There are three shots that stick out that I recall.
First, we see our expedition group walking on a trail along a mountainside. It’s a long shot zoomed in to a width capturing the entire group. Then, over the course of likely half a minute or more, the camera puts out ever so slowly to reveal that the camera was well across a massive valley and we get a tremendous landscape with the faint movement of our group still visible in the distance.
Second, after the wedding, as Ragnar is playing the accordion, the camera slowly pans left to right in a 360 degree loop capturing the entirety of the wedding’s scene, with kids playing on horses, people drinking, chatting, dancing, and as the camera returns to Ragnar and the accordion, the song ends, perfectly capping the scene off.
Finally, the cuts between seasons from identical viewpoints. How? Was there a permanent platform in place to lack the camera down? Was the camera there for entire years to grab those different moments without having moved? We got two perfect overhead shots—Lucas’s horse dead in the field, decaying. Then, the shot that begins with a pink and purple sunset against a mountain peak and a glacial valley. We see the daytime next, then the seasons, a storm, the glacier making its presence known, and finally some horses lingering in the background. It was exquisite.
The entire movie being framed as a square medium format style picture was a nice touch. It brought the camera closer with tighter shots in the right moments. I don’t know how you would shoot Iceland better, either.
This thing was very, very good. It got a little bloody at times, with real life depictions of slaughtering animals, which I have a hard time with. But I can’t say anything about this other than I was in awe of the cinematography while watching a deep, difficult descent of one man into a state of desperation and madness.