‘Raptures’ Review: Religious Extremism Abets Toxic Masculinity In a Timely Swedish Period Piece

variety.com:

Guy Lodge Film Critic In case you’re in any doubt as to how you should respond when your hitherto mild-mannered husband announces plans to lead a religious sect — the answer is to run, very fast and very far — the Swedish drama “Raptures” should prove both engrossing and instructive.

Even if you aren’t, writer-director Jon Blåhed‘s film remains both those things, though the trajectory of its fictional narrative isn’t altogether surprising.

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.