The Northman brings Viking history to life with a roar of bloody defiance

The Northman brings Viking history to life with a roar of bloody defiance

The witch and Lighthouse director Robert Eggers is many things. He is a meticulous craftsman who loves striking compositions. He’s a bearded hipster in a Carhartt jacket. If Facebook commenters are to be believed, this is a “high horror” bogeyman that represents everything that’s wrong with the genre today. But above all, he is a history buff. Eggers is the kind of person who reads medieval Icelandic literature for fun – that’s exactly how his latest project, the bloody Vikings revenge saga. The man from the northit has been found.
Press releases for the film describe it as a deep dive into the Viking way of life and worldview, backed up by archaeologists and historians. But the experience of watching it isn’t as dry and noble. The film is more like a heavy metal music video, a testosterone-fueled mix of fire, blood, nudity and screaming fueled by hate and hallucinatory shamanic rituals.
As is always the case in Eggers’ films, the line between belief in the supernatural and actual supernatural events is open to individual interpretation. But the characters have no doubt that the dead walk in shadows, men can be possessed by wolves, and the Valkyries will come to escort them back to Valhalla if they are lucky enough to die in battle. It’s a movie where a wizard casts a spell using severed pieces of Willem Dafoe’s severed and desiccated head, and Björk appears with a crown of wheat and the fate of men twisted between her fingers.

Photo: focus features
Alexander Skarsgård stars as Amleth, son of a warrior monarch known as Raven King (Ethan Hawke). As a child, Amleth witnesses the murder of her father at the hands of her uncle Fjölnir (Cleas Bang) and devotes her life to revenge. The Shakespearean parallels deepen when Fjölnir marries his brother’s wife, Queen Gudrún (Nicole Kidman), who turns out to be a better Lady Macbeth than anyone in the Scottish play. As an adult, Amleth discovers this by following rumors to Iceland, where Fjölnir and his men have reinvented themselves as sheep herders after losing their stolen kingdom to more powerful Norwegian marauders. There, Amleth disguises herself as a slave and embarks on a guerrilla campaign with the help of Olga of the Birch Forest (Anya Taylor-Joy), a Slavic witch also enslaved in the lands of Fjölnir. Amleth is also aided by crows, which periodically appear and remind him of the injustice done to his family.
The violence following (and preceding) Amleth’s arrival in Iceland is bloody and graphic, and Eggers films Viking raids on humble villages in impressively choreographed follow-up shots that glide through blood, mud and the gurgling groans of dozens of bag-clad extras. The dialogue similarly mixes savagery and bombast: a character chokes on a curse of death, vowing to torment his killer until “fiery revenge gorges itself on your flesh.” Another said optimistically to a friend, “Together we will rage on the battlefield of corpses.” Place it all against the majestic Icelandic landscape and a background sound of booming drums and deep bass vocals rolling in like a thunderstorm, and the effect is rightly impressive.
While the scene where Amleth bludgeons a man to death with his head is probably not historically necessary, the brutality displayed throughout The man from the north is not completely free. Viking culture placed great importance on domination by brute force: at one point, a character refers to becoming a “grey beard” – that is, living long enough for your hair to turn white – as a shameful fate worse than death. (For women, this culture of subjugation manifests itself in the continued threat of sexual violence, which Eggers thankfully leaves mostly offscreen.) This contrasts with a more modern narrative thread, questioning whether the revenge plot of ‘Amleth is ultimately a futile and wrong move.

Photo: focus features
Without going into too much detail, Amleth (and Eggers) ultimately decide to go the culturally accurate route. This sums up the story perfectly, but it points to a weakness in The man from the north which makes it less resonant than Eggers’ first film, The witch. This film asked whether it was witchcraft or a society that believed in witchcraft that was to blame for the persecution of women like the protagonist, Thomasin (also played by Taylor-Joy). That thread is present here as well, though Eggers seems to be having more fun leading the Wild Hunt than pondering its implications.
And finally, the most thoughtful themes in The man from the northare drowned by the beating of savage drums and swept away in a river of carnage, culminating in a naked, grimy sword fight in a lava field, as repeatedly promised by prophecy throughout the film. But although the film ends as a cursory rumination on revenge and single-minded domination, it’s hard to beat as a spectacle. In terms of making the story exciting and engaging, The man from the north is about as exciting as gateway drugs.
The man from the north debuts in North American theaters on April 22.

#Northman #brings #Viking #history #life #roar #bloody #defiance

The Northman brings Viking history to life with a roar of bloody defiance

The witch and Lighthouse director Robert Eggers is many things. He is a meticulous craftsman who loves striking compositions. He’s a bearded hipster in a Carhartt jacket. If Facebook commenters are to be believed, this is a “high horror” bogeyman that represents everything that’s wrong with the genre today. But above all, he is a history buff. Eggers is the kind of person who reads medieval Icelandic literature for fun – that’s exactly how his latest project, the bloody Vikings revenge saga. The man from the northit has been found.
Press releases for the film describe it as a deep dive into the Viking way of life and worldview, backed up by archaeologists and historians. But the experience of watching it isn’t as dry and noble. The film is more like a heavy metal music video, a testosterone-fueled mix of fire, blood, nudity and screaming fueled by hate and hallucinatory shamanic rituals.
As is always the case in Eggers’ films, the line between belief in the supernatural and actual supernatural events is open to individual interpretation. But the characters have no doubt that the dead walk in shadows, men can be possessed by wolves, and the Valkyries will come to escort them back to Valhalla if they are lucky enough to die in battle. It’s a movie where a wizard casts a spell using severed pieces of Willem Dafoe’s severed and desiccated head, and Björk appears with a crown of wheat and the fate of men twisted between her fingers.

Photo: focus features
Alexander Skarsgård stars as Amleth, son of a warrior monarch known as Raven King (Ethan Hawke). As a child, Amleth witnesses the murder of her father at the hands of her uncle Fjölnir (Cleas Bang) and devotes her life to revenge. The Shakespearean parallels deepen when Fjölnir marries his brother’s wife, Queen Gudrún (Nicole Kidman), who turns out to be a better Lady Macbeth than anyone in the Scottish play. As an adult, Amleth discovers this by following rumors to Iceland, where Fjölnir and his men have reinvented themselves as sheep herders after losing their stolen kingdom to more powerful Norwegian marauders. There, Amleth disguises herself as a slave and embarks on a guerrilla campaign with the help of Olga of the Birch Forest (Anya Taylor-Joy), a Slavic witch also enslaved in the lands of Fjölnir. Amleth is also aided by crows, which periodically appear and remind him of the injustice done to his family.
The violence following (and preceding) Amleth’s arrival in Iceland is bloody and graphic, and Eggers films Viking raids on humble villages in impressively choreographed follow-up shots that glide through blood, mud and the gurgling groans of dozens of bag-clad extras. The dialogue similarly mixes savagery and bombast: a character chokes on a curse of death, vowing to torment his killer until “fiery revenge gorges itself on your flesh.” Another said optimistically to a friend, “Together we will rage on the battlefield of corpses.” Place it all against the majestic Icelandic landscape and a background sound of booming drums and deep bass vocals rolling in like a thunderstorm, and the effect is rightly impressive.
While the scene where Amleth bludgeons a man to death with his head is probably not historically necessary, the brutality displayed throughout The man from the north is not completely free. Viking culture placed great importance on domination by brute force: at one point, a character refers to becoming a “grey beard” – that is, living long enough for your hair to turn white – as a shameful fate worse than death. (For women, this culture of subjugation manifests itself in the continued threat of sexual violence, which Eggers thankfully leaves mostly offscreen.) This contrasts with a more modern narrative thread, questioning whether the revenge plot of ‘Amleth is ultimately a futile and wrong move.

Photo: focus features
Without going into too much detail, Amleth (and Eggers) ultimately decide to go the culturally accurate route. This sums up the story perfectly, but it points to a weakness in The man from the north which makes it less resonant than Eggers’ first film, The witch. This film asked whether it was witchcraft or a society that believed in witchcraft that was to blame for the persecution of women like the protagonist, Thomasin (also played by Taylor-Joy). That thread is present here as well, though Eggers seems to be having more fun leading the Wild Hunt than pondering its implications.
And finally, the most thoughtful themes in The man from the northare drowned by the beating of savage drums and swept away in a river of carnage, culminating in a naked, grimy sword fight in a lava field, as repeatedly promised by prophecy throughout the film. But although the film ends as a cursory rumination on revenge and single-minded domination, it’s hard to beat as a spectacle. In terms of making the story exciting and engaging, The man from the north is about as exciting as gateway drugs.
The man from the north debuts in North American theaters on April 22.

#Northman #brings #Viking #history #life #roar #bloody #defiance