Terre selvagge

As far as period pieces set in the middle ages go, this one isn't very glamorous. It's a decently well made film with some strong individual performances that basically carry a mostly disjointed and only slightly nuanced story. My rating for this movie is a fairly weak 7/10. That rating is floated higher than I would have normally given it for three specific reasons.

First, the performances: Holland as the young, pious monk who has never known anything but life in the monastery yet quickly matures when faced with adversity. Bernthal as the obedient and entirely subservient mute with an obviously profound yet mysterious history who becomes the star of the show on more than one occasion without saying a word. Stanley Weber as the Cistercian, the guy the Church sends out to do their dirty work basically and effectively starts the "Pilgrimage" in the first place. Of course, there's also Richard Armitage as the surly French knight commanding his Baron father's equally surly men while throwing surly looks around all the time. This would have been a horribly dull and hard to watch movie if these guys didn't pull off these fairly typical medieval character archetypes well and it feels to me like they did.

Second, the action and set sequences were well done. I tend to be the kind of person who is immediately thrown off by a bad transition or a sequence of shots that just don't really work well together. I didn't see very much of that in this film. Granted, it's not difficult managing scene transition when most every scene is shot outdoors in Ireland but when the action happens, it's brutal and effective.

Third, symbolism. If you are someone who does not like it when a movie expects you to draw your own significance from the story it's trying to tell, this is not a movie you might like. Religion is a central theme in this movie and it is built on a foundation of symbolism that can be taken any number of different ways. If you like diving into the deeper meaning of things, you will actually love this movie. Especially how it ends.

Yes this film is bloody. For some the scenes might even be shocking, but I really enjoyed this film. Acting was good, the suspense build up was very good. And at no point did it seem the violence was unnecessary. If you enjoy historical type films and don't mind seeing a head bashed in close up, you will enjoy this.

PILGRIMAGE (2017)

This is the new film from the Irish director of the excellent 2009 flick called SAVAGE about an assault on a news reporter in Dublin (and it's aftermath) and I gotta say, if Werner Herzog had made this film rather than one about an Amazonian trek he wudda been quite happy.

The film is set in the early 1200s in Ireland where superstition and the struggle for Christian domination of the country are rife and there, an envoy from Rome is sent to collect a supposedly sacred relic from some rural monks and bring it back to the holy city.

The movie is grim, and conveys the horrible conditions people existed/lived in back then perfectly (the bloody weather looks the same as Ireland has now though haha). It's highly atmospheric, with bleak Irish landscapes, and the acting is top notch with the film basically being a dangerous road trip carrying the relic to a ship that's waiting for them in Waterford (to sail across to France and onward to Rome).

The fact that the film is recorded in Irish, French, and English adds a brilliant realism to proceedings which echoes the situation at the time with Ireland being infringed upon from all sides, and along the way things get very messy and bloody (one death is particularly gruesome).

I'm sure there wasn't a huge Hollywood budget for PILGRIMAGE but they've kept things really concentrated and its certainly exceeds what you might expect to be straight to video cheese.

This is the third film I've seen by Brendan Muldowney and I think the guy has some talent. I will be looking out for his next film and if you haven't already caught SAVAGE Id check that out too.

I've gone for this movie with no expectations based on its rating ,, but I was really surprised .. This movie is really Powerful that after its end it would make you think for a while about your convictions or the principles of your beliefs . * maybe not going wrong with them but just questioning *

It discusses things not about religion but particularly the way of Religious speech and people who may control the message of religions in general ( Not Christianity in particular ) and how politics also may affect how things work ..

The acting is very good especially that of Jon Bernthal ( The Mute ) .. The music is well played as well as the picture ,, Great Atmosphere of that period of time ( 13th century ) with bloody violent action scenes which were really well performed

This is my first movie of the director Brendan Muldowney and I think it won't be the last .. Great Job

Overall I liked nearly everything about the movie . If you're interested in that period of time and historical movies , Just go for it ..

In the early 13th century a group of monks are tasked to transport an ancient holy relic from their remote monastery in Ireland to Rome. They have organised assistance along the way in the form of some French soldiers but events do not pan out in a straightforward way.

This Irish adventure-drama is one which manages to capture its period feel while retaining a contemporary edge. The problem with these types of movies is often the characters spout dialogue which is overly dramatic and false feeling, like a bunch of modern actors pretending to be from medieval times. In this case, it didn't feel like this so much, with performances being universally convincing and understated enough to feel considerably more authentic than is usual. The choice of using different languages of the day assisted in this, with Gaelic, French and English (the latter of which being used as a substitute for Latin, which the film-makers decided could not be spoken naturally nowadays so an artistic compromise was to substitute that for English). The gloomy Irish landscape was very evocative and atmospheric and captured very well cinematically, and like other adventure-dramas like the Amazon films of Werner Herzog, the landscape is to all intents and purposes another character too, given its visual potency. There is an excellent low-key atmospheric score underpinning the imagery and events which serves the tension and drama very well also. The story itself is very minimalistic and straightforward with a quest narrative that actively allows for a variety of different events to unfold, which includes a couple of dynamic action scenes – a brutal and intense ambush in a forest and a finale on a beach. The story is clever enough to allow for a religious interpretation while offering up rationale explanations for all events too. In this way, it has a modern feel to it while playing off the mysteries inherent in the religious side of things. Overall, I found this to be a very compelling bit of work, with a great atmospheric setting and interesting characters. And because it is an Irish production, it does have a more authentically Celtic feel to it, which served the material well.