Religious (dis)order

According to the narrator of Christopher Smith’s latest genre derivative Black Death, the plague is estimated to have wiped out around 50% of the European population. When people around you are dying off at an alarming rate and you can in all reasonability be next, you want answers: why is this happening? In Medieval England – the year of our Lord 1348, to be precise – the young monk Osmund (Eddie Redmayne), questioning whether the plague is possibly some sort of punishment for their sins (“but for what sin?”), volunteers to lead a group of the bishop’s knights to a remote village “across the marshes”. 

Apparently, this particular village is unaffected by the plague. Instead of instilling some gratitude that at least someone somewhere is free from the disease, it elicits suspicion: why that village in particular? What do they do or have that keeps them safe from the plague? According to the leader of the knights, Ulric (Sean Bean), a necromancer is the reason for the village's proliferation. And within Christianised Britain, necromancy and any other pagan activity and witchery will result in death to those who transgress against God.

So off go the monk and the knights – including the film’s best secondary character, the serious minded older knight Wolfstan (John Lynch) - to fight what they believe is the good fight. As everyone who’s ever seen a medieval epic or adventure knows, battles, dismemberment and death await on their quest. We know that the knights’ numbers will dwindle, and that much will be sacrificed on their way to the mysterious village.

But while Black Death hooks you with its premise and the promise of swords clashing and heads rolling, at a certain point the film becomes a surprisingly sombre tale of faith, religious indoctrination and the evils that men do in the name of their deity. It’s not as weighty or innovative as Valhalla Rising, as it still maintains certain genre conventions. Yet Black Death’s final half hour opens up interpretations on how certain events actually proceeded for the characters and the audience, which contributes to the film’s overall scepticism in the belief in the supernatural. In this sense, it’s less an epic than many other medieval actioners, and also more.

Christopher Smith is an exciting minor filmmaker, ‘minor’ in the sense that he hasn’t yet broken out into mainstream cinema even though his movies are all genre films. As Black Death is ostensibly a period adventure, Triangle was a female-driven thriller while Creep was a horror feature. But there’s always something different to Smith’s films, which makes them worth seeking out. Shot in Germany, Black Death looks beautiful and features convincing set designs, everyone making the most of what was surely a very limited budget . And it has Carice van Houten, the gorgeous spy in Zwartboek, whom I failed to recognise. 

Black Death is brutal and grisly, as befits its type, yet contains a single scene of battle. The film’s interesting contradictions make for absorbing viewing in spite of some unimaginative dialogue.