Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Robert Eggers
Starring: Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Claes Bang, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ethan
Hawke, Björk, Willem Dafoe
"I will avenge you Father. I will save you Mother. I will kill you
Fjolnir."
So goes the mantra repeated by the vengeful hero of
Robert Eggers' blood-soaked and mud-caked Viking thriller
The Northman. Co-written with Icelandic writer Sjón (a writer on the recent
oddity
Lamb), Eggers' film is an adaptation of the 13th century tale of Amleth.
The story has previously been adapted by no less than Willy the Shake as
Hamlet. If that knowledge threatens to put off viewers more inclined
towards action than soliloquies, fear not. Like Denis Villeneuve with
Frank Herbert's
Dune, Eggers has chiseled the legend of Amleth down to the basics of the
story, fashioning a simple tale of revenge in which the hero sets out to
avenge his Dad, save his Mom, and slaughter Fjolnir.
Amleth's quest for revenge begins when his father (Ethan Hawke),
a king of some God forsaken territory in the wintry North Atlantic, is
slain by his traitorous brother Fjolnir (Claes Bang), who
subsequently makes off with Amleth's mother, Queen Gudrún (Nicole Kidman), slung over his shoulder. Young Amleth flees, vowing to some day kill
his uncle and free his mother.
That day comes a decade or so later when Amleth is now a hulking
berserker played by Alexander Skarsgård in the role he's been
waiting for all his life. Resembling the sort of Scandinavian
centre-back a relegation battling football team might send up for a
corner, Amleth is part of a Viking raiding party raping and pillaging in
the land of Rus. During one raid on a village, Amleth overhears the
details of Fjolnir's whereabouts – he's now residing in Iceland, having
made Gudrún his wife. Disguising himself as a captured Slav slave,
Amleth sneaks onto a boat bound for Iceland and awaits his moment to
strike, aided by visions of various figures (including Bjork) who
advise him on how best to conduct his revenge mission, all while falling
for white-haired Slav sorceress Olga (Anya Taylor-Joy, rehashing
her dodgy
New Mutants
accent).
Just as David Lowery did with
The Green Knight, Eggers takes full advantage of the Irish landscape, which makes for
an impressive stand-in for Iceland. Seeing characters roll around in
actual mud in real fields adds a verisimilitude that's been sorely
lacking in most movies of this sort in the years since
Braveheart. CG is of course present, but it's used sparingly, enhancing rather
than overwhelming scenes and set-pieces. While not on the level of W.
Percy Day, the matte work, with exploding volcanoes in the distance,
adds to the sense that this is the sort of landscape that can't help but
inspire larger than life legends.
Arriving on the scene with a pair of essentially arthouse movies in
The Witch
and
The Lighthouse, Eggers may not seem the most obvious choice to direct a movie in
which many throats are slashed and swords are shoved through heads. But
Eggers proves himself a master of staging action, with a couple of
set-pieces here that are as good as anything the fantasy/historical epic
sub-genres have given us. While it's a throwback to the Hollywood epics
of the '50s and '60s and their bloodier Braveheart era
descendants, The Northman is heavily influenced by Russian
filmmaking, with scenes that strongly echo those found in the films of
Klimov (Amleth staring into the screen as an atrocity occurs in the
background is a clear nod to the grueling Come and See) and Aleksei German, whose rambling tracking shots are replicated to
thrilling effect in a single-take siege on a village that plays like a
Bruegel painting made real. A sequence in which Amleth is forced to take
part in a sport that appears to be a slightly less violent version of
hurling is a masterclass in action filmmaking, with a proto-sliotar
flying through the air at high speed like the killer ball from the
Phantasm films (I haven't seen a movie character as
talented as catching objects thrown at such velocity since John Belushi
nonchalantly caught that beer bottle in Animal House). A battle with the undead keeper of a sword will bring older viewers
back to Sunday afternoons spent watching Ray Harryhausen's Sinbad
movies.
At close to 2.5 hours, The Northman does suffer from a
final act in which everything has been so telegraphed that there are no
surprises left for the audience, who are left to watch the movie play
out its inevitable conclusion. While gripped by the movie's action and
mood-building, you may find yourself pining for a little more depth in
the character department. Amleth is no more complex than the average
Charles Bronson protagonist, and the trouble with adapting centuries old
material is that it can't help but feel overly familiar. Elements of
this story have cropped up in everything from
The Searchers (the idea of rescuing someone who may not
wish to be saved) to Revenge of the Sith (a climactic duel
on a raging volcano), and of course the aforementioned Shakespeare
play.
To see or not to see? Absolutely the former. This is old-school
practical filmmaking of the sort we may not get the chance to bask in
for much longer, with modern audiences seemingly as content to watch
actors prance around in front of a green screen in some Burbank
warehouse as to revel in this sort of location heavy, CG-light
spectacle. Amleth's story may be a tale as old as time, but while the
story beats are familiar, the level of filmmaking on display here is an
all too rare treat.
