Sword of Blood

A brutal tale, impressively told, this is a medieval tragedy of missionaries in foreign lands. Making full use of natural habitats and the elements, Krew Boga reeks of authenticity in its depiction of a pagan culture which realistically borders on the alien. The storyline examines the compromises spirituality makes once in alignment with politics, and the thin line between faith and delusion.

With convincingly intense performances, beautiful cinematography, and a haunting score, Krew Boga is technically impressive and bleakly beautiful. I cannot fathom some of the low scores, here. I can only imagine some people were expecting Braveheart or Vikings, the tv show. If this movie has any comparisons, it might be The Mission,1986, or Valhalla Rising, 2009. In fact, together, these would make a fascinating, if exhausting, triple bill.

Much more than an atmospheric movie, as I read somewhere, this is an expressionist one. Grimy art direction and fisrt-person camera are combined to provide the spectator the feeling of early christianization missions: fearsome, unpredictable and ethnocentric. The Polish movie, in order to heighten that feeling, unveils very little information, and even the Germanic dialect of the pagan natives is nearly never followed by subtitles. We do know that there was a Christian king who could attack pagan tribes, that one of the two unrelated missionaries was a bishop, and that the whiteclay-painted people worshipped Slavic god Perun and goddess Mokosh. Therefore, a good guess is that the aforementioned ruler could be Mieszko, and the story happened some time after the beginning of his reign; given the actor's age, it may be in the 970s. The bishop could be inspired in Jordan, although the name of that character in the script was Willibrord, the very name of a later Anglo-Saxon bishop who lived elsewhere, in the Netherlands; if it were Jordan, the first Polish bishop, the year would be 968. Anyway, more important than historical accuracy (about a time whixh knowledge about is not accurate either) is the immersive experience in Middle Ages far from so-called civilized settlements. It is also a truer narrative about how European nation-states were born than the usual laudatory ones.

This is a pretty dark, but interesting experimental movie about the Middle Ages. A lot of strange things happened in those times, and this movie gives a special impression about it. Pagans, Christianity, strange rituals & beliefs... It was quite a spiritual experience with a lot of different factions, and this movie gives an eyewitness account about it. Probably it's far from 100% authentic, but probably many tribes had similar lives. Also, there are some interesting twists in the story, but I won't spoil those, watch it to experience it yourself... ☺

This piece of art is like a blackmetal music video in feature length. Someone who is into medieval stuff & ancient tribes will be satisfied. The visual power of the sceneries & the portray of interpersonal conflicts are astonishing. Besides the cast being local actors, it's a well-written script with authentic characters. The atmosohere is getting progressively threatening while it moulds into a climax of the story. Both main characters profit from eachother as opponents to really shine next to eachother. Both of them are highly emotional within their acting & still manage not to outshine one another.

The photography was quite interesting but everything else was boring, overdone rubbish. It is brutal & the pagans are treated like some type of sub human species. They are made to look ridiculous with covering their faces entirely in clay & shaking their heads like dogs. Then in other shots they are acting like they have deep emotional ties with each other & can be affectionate. It looks like the director or writer can't make their minds up about what type of humans they are. The priests also seem to be a bit confused with contradictory actions. I tried hard to watch it but fell asleep 3 times & found the ending was not worth waiting for. Don't bother wasting yourtime.