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‘Raptures’ Review: Religious Extremism Abets Toxic Masculinity In a Timely Swedish Period Piece
Spiritually despairing beneath its gleamingly shot surface, Jon Blåhed's compelling drama 'Raptures' won Rotterdam's Big Screen competition.
Focused on a principled Christian woman in a remote northern village in 1930s Sweden, losing grip on her marriage and her social standing as her husband becomes an abusive cult guru, Blåhed’s script was inspired by the Korpela movement that spun off from a particularly pietistic branch of Lutheranism in the 1920s, eventually devolving into misogynistic hedonism — facts to which the film adheres with minimal luridness. Still, “Raptures” indulges enough morbid fascination with its characters’ unhinged behavior to draw a curious arthouse audience, who should also be attracted by the less provocative pleasures of the film’s elegant craftsmanship — with its remote, dazzling Scandi locations captured in sumptuous widescreen images by DP Mimmo Hildén. Bluff, handsome and community-minded, Teodor is better-liked — a status that serves him well when Toivo Korpela (Samuli Niittymaki), real-life founder of the aforementioned movement, visits the village to spread his particular gospel, and eventually departs, leaving an eagerly converted parish in need of a leader.
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