Pilgrimage

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.

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.

This strong, atmospheric, and beautifully-made little film did not disappoint based on reviews that either put it in the trash for "gratuitous violence" or gave it a firm pat on the head for a good attempt.

I see the value in the latter assessment - working on a budget, this film does a lot with what it has, providing hauntingly beautiful vistas of an ancient Ireland and making its story stretch beyond its small shooting framework. The actors, too, make so much of the script they've been given, with great performances throughout. Although this does lead me onto the main drawback of the film: the characters are largely undeveloped, especially that of Diarmuid - who is the protagonist no less - and his Brothers. We can see that he cares about them a lot - after all, "the monastery is all he's ever known" - but more development would have been crucial to making me really care about whether they lived or died, failed or succeeded. The most interesting characters for me were Geraldus and the Mute, "grey" characters whose backstories are hinted at if never fully disclosed, and with sublime subtlety in the case of Bernthal's character. The characters we do get to truly see are rewarding, albeit darkly, and were one of the film's greatest triumphs - it just would have been great to see the same treatment given to the lead protagonist and primary villain.

In the other camp, I don't think the story could have worked without the levels of violence, savagery, and loss that we see, which the viewer must witness with the same unblinking acceptance that the characters do. In this, there is a hidden depth to Pilgrimage, a story about Ireland, the land where "there was never peace". One review focused around the particular Irishness of the film rang true in some places - that the colour shown here is multiple shades of grey, and little green - if not in others. This is not a deconstruction of the "Irish" mythos, but it does touch, tenderly and reverentially, upon the idea of an unattainable relic: to know peace, both within and without, a dream not limited to this country but echoed in Jerusalem and beyond. Though it does not present its findings in a wholly satisfying parcel, the film did provoke thought about where that quest for peace could lead us next - to what bloody ends or watery graves? To what loss and to what triumphs?

"Where to now?"

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 ..

Well cast and acted. Visually pleasing and plenty of well performed action. If this is your genre you'll enjoy it