Of what use is devotion when it swerves from the healing to the corrosive? Jon Blåhed’s unflinching film Raptures swoops on the excesses of belief, surveying the fallout of its most blinded avatar. It becomes a solipsistic affair, shutting out reason and dancing to the beat of its own deluded, twisted logic.

Set in the 1930s and drawing from real events, the film draws us to the vicelike grip the ‘Korpela movement’ had on northern Sweden. The religious sect is successful in exerting its presence and influence, despite resistance and threats from the Church. After the proponent of the sect leaves the village, Teodor takes charge as the religious authority.

Teodor doesn’t strike as an individual who’s aware he’s doing harm. He is so sunk in his private, alternative faith he sanctifies all his base desires as endowed by the light of the sect itself. He...