Mark Reviews Movies: SWORD OF GOD

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Review by Mark Dujsik | May 11, 2020

Two soldiers of the Church in the Middle Ages are stranded in a foreign land. One has come to escape and find peace, and the other has come to kill the first. That's the basic setup of Sword of God, a visually stunning but frustratingly rudimentary examination of how men can corrupt the good intentions of religion.

The soldiers are Willibrord (Krzysztof Pieczynski), the sole survivor of an expedition to this coastal land, and a man soon to be known as "the Mute" (Karol Bernacki), who arrived in this place sometime earlier. The unnamed man rescues Willibrord, and because of that, the newly arrived soldier stays his sword when he has the perfect opportunity to fulfill his mission.

Most of the story involves how the two men differ in their approach to a pagan tribe. Willibrord, who presents himself as a bishop, wants to convert the native people. During a trial by fire, he shows that he's willing to let some of them die, if it means the salvation of their souls and members of the congregation for the church he wants to build.

The unnamed man, who cites the Beatitudes (blessing the merciful, the peacemakers, etc.) after witnessing the tribe's shaman die by immolation, determines that Willibrord's actions contradict their faith. He sews his mouth shut and joins the pagans, who view the Mute as a prophet.

Co-writer/director Bartosz Konopka and cinematographer Jacek Podgórski provide an eerie atmosphere for this land, dense in rich shadows and punctuated by hellish flames or the dim glow of the sunset. The spare palette gives the impression of both desolation and an empty slate—to be written by Willibrord's tortured severity or by the Mute's ideals of unity and compassion.

That battle of ideas, occasionally erupting in actual fights, is the central conflict here. While the screenplay (written by Konopka, Przemyslaw Nowakowski, and Anna Wydra) and the movie's striking aesthetics impart the feeling of an allegorical tale, the actual weight of the conflict never registers beyond such broad strokes.

The movie, perhaps, is too grim and too bleak for the Mute's worldview to come into focus in any tangible way, leaving us only with the despair and cruelty of Willibrord's doubting but determined convictions. Sword of God, then, is less a debate about religion's role in the hearts of men and more a flat, cynical cry of hopelessness.

Note: Sword of God is available to watch online through Film Movement's Virtual Cinema. You can choose to support a local independent theater with your rental purchase. Half of proceeds from the rental will go to the theater. For more information and to access the film, click here.

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