This film is a mess. Firstly the title in English is an unenlightening non-translation of the Danish and Icelandic title, which means Lost, Disappeared and/or Forbidden land.
Secondly, the subtitles of the version I watched in the cinema came 9 seconds after the speech...meanwhile, the film had (depressingly) moved on. Moreover, the subtitles constantly referred to the anti-hero as a 'priest', when he was a Lutheran pastor.
Some films have differently-coloured subtitles to avoid confusion when different people are speaking, but this one didn't. In any case, the 9-second delay might have made them even more problematic. It may have been slightly more confusing for me because I understood some of the Danish, but had to wait 9 seconds to be sure I understood correctly, by which time the film had ground on semi-comprehensibly in really-depressing landscape, like the bleakest possible parts of Ireland. There was a lovely dog who had a good part (no subtitles required), the horses played themselves superbly, and a volcano cheerily erupted. Not a single tree appeared.
People drowned, horses fell, God was invoked, it rained a lot.
I am an admirer of the Icelandic writer Halldór Laxness, and it is likely that any attempt to render, for example, his great 'Salka Valka' into film might well end up like this. (What a pity nobody has tried to make a film of the exciting, bloody, epic *and* bleak Njál's Saga!)
I stuck it for an hour before leaving - and fell over a woman as I did so, sprawling on the floor. I picked myself up and fled certainly the dreariest and one of the worst films I have ever seen.
I want to complain to IMBDb that all too often a half-written review disappears completely from the review pane...and I have to start again.
Secondly, the subtitles of the version I watched in the cinema came 9 seconds after the speech...meanwhile, the film had (depressingly) moved on. Moreover, the subtitles constantly referred to the anti-hero as a 'priest', when he was a Lutheran pastor.
Some films have differently-coloured subtitles to avoid confusion when different people are speaking, but this one didn't. In any case, the 9-second delay might have made them even more problematic. It may have been slightly more confusing for me because I understood some of the Danish, but had to wait 9 seconds to be sure I understood correctly, by which time the film had ground on semi-comprehensibly in really-depressing landscape, like the bleakest possible parts of Ireland. There was a lovely dog who had a good part (no subtitles required), the horses played themselves superbly, and a volcano cheerily erupted. Not a single tree appeared.
People drowned, horses fell, God was invoked, it rained a lot.
I am an admirer of the Icelandic writer Halldór Laxness, and it is likely that any attempt to render, for example, his great 'Salka Valka' into film might well end up like this. (What a pity nobody has tried to make a film of the exciting, bloody, epic *and* bleak Njál's Saga!)
I stuck it for an hour before leaving - and fell over a woman as I did so, sprawling on the floor. I picked myself up and fled certainly the dreariest and one of the worst films I have ever seen.
I want to complain to IMBDb that all too often a half-written review disappears completely from the review pane...and I have to start again.