First, there is the language barrier.
How to preach the good word to Icelanders when you are Danish?
Lucas has this squaring the circle to solve.
That's not the only obstacle he faces.
At the end of the 19th century, this young pastor had to navigate hostile seas, cross flooded rivers, learn to ride a horse, get bogged down in vast soggy fields.
The worst misfortunes await him.
His photographic material accompanies him.
He asks the sailors, then the natives, to pose for him.
It takes time, calls for an immobility of marble.
A rugged bearded patriarch views the ride with a circumspection bordering on hostility.
This man, who seems to date back to prehistoric times, resists the spiritual assaults of the missionary.
The latter does not seem to care that much to convert the villagers.
He lets them build a wooden church, refuses to celebrate a wedding on the pretext that the building is not finished.
We observe it, watch it.
He tries his hand at local mores, takes part in a wrestling contest.
Having a crush on one of the locals' eldest daughter was not part of the adoption rituals.
Violence arises in sudden gusts.
Civilization very quickly becomes this thing, forgotten, useless.
As for nature, it is omnipresent.
His kingdom is made up of vertiginous waterfalls, horizons of greenery, erupting volcanoes, glaciers of anthology.
Gold at your fingertips
In these distant lands, characters collide.
It has almost mythological overtones.
Beauty does not leave the screen in square format.
We feel the breath of greatness, very old fears, the bitter taste of sin - this word still meant something, in 1860 and dust.
We are confused by the audacity, the originality of Hlyur Palmason.
He paints with film, aligns striking paintings, summons ancient powers, in countries where night never falls.
A dog barks during mass.
A heavy wooden cross drifts with the current.
Faith finds it difficult to find a place for itself in these harsh climates.
The director scrutinizes lost souls, practices a cinema of the borders, with Conradian accents.
He has gold at his fingertips.
It is the gold of time.
The images take your breath away.
The subject carries
deserts the small daily miseries, rolls destinies in tragedy and mud.
There is
Aguirre
in this headlong rush, like a sort of solemn dream.
Bergman is not absent and it is not forbidden to summon Dreyer.
It's crowded.
The movie deserves it.
God will recognize his own there.
Hopefully he won't be the only one.