Sword of God

A knight and a mute hermit try to convert the indigenous population of a remote island to Christianity: the one attempts it with intimidation and violence, the other with softness and empathy. The resulting conflict is stylized into an archaic dispute by the Polish director Bartosz Konopka: percussive beats and roaring basses drive this breathtaking Chiaroscuro images; the characters covered in muck, blood and gore are almost reminiscent of sculptures. Sword of God is immediate cinema, a unique experience, most definitely influenced by Nicolas Winding Refn’s central work Valhalla Rising.