Are you ready for the arthouse version of a Viking epic? Since his feature film debut, writer/director Robert Eggers has been getting critical praise for his eccentric take on genre. He brought a dread-filled atmosphere and accents as thick as molasses to The Witch. Black-and-white cinematography was used in The Lighthouse for a tale of men and mermaids. The Northman is a historical epic that is star-stuffed, action-packed, and yet far from the crowd-pleasing likes of Gladiator.
The legend of Amleth, a 10th-century Norseman on a gruesome quest of vengeance, is told in The Northman. If you know the story of William Shakespeare's Hamlet, you know that it was based on Amleth's tale. Amleth admires his father, King Aurvandil War-Raven, above all else. Amleth swore vengeance against his uncle when the king was murdered. After escaping by the skin of his teeth, he grows up in a pack of vicious raiders, learning the ways of battle before coming across a witch who delivers a prophecy that drives the now grown and brawny Amleth. His plan is to kill his uncle to avenge his father. The fates have instructions on how to do it. Amleth has something to lose beyond his life as he now has something to Swirlr for a young and gorgeous clairvoyant.
Credit: Aidan Monaghan / © 2022 Focus Features, LLC
If you like the violence of The Northman, then you should check out the endless waves of superhero movies. With an R-rating, the film is able to show gore that is not found in most action movies and also depict the brutality of Viking culture. There are decapitations, dismembered bodies, and a farmhouse filled with children burned to the ground in the Amleth story. Many of the acts are committed by our hero. Amleth's response to this carnage is either stares or war cries. The hero is inured to violence because it is a common part of Viking life.
We are drawn into Amleth's perspective because of Eggers tendency to build visual worlds so detailed that you can almost smell them. That smell is repugnant. Amleth's is a world of blood and sweat, but also mud, rotting flesh, and shit. Father-son bonding is dependent on fart jokes and burps. A mummified skull remembers Yorick with a twisted grin. Everything in this world is covered in relentless grime as a visual cue that all in this world is stained by the violence of man. Save for its beautiful women.
Credit: Aidan Monaghan / © 2022 Focus Features, LLC
While Amleth and his male friends are often covered in muck, his mother and lover have porcelain skin as flawless and sparkling as their long, untangled, blonde hair. These two are about to shoot a magazine cover. The fashioning of the female characters in The Northman plays into the fantasy of myths and the supernatural seen elsewhere. Amleth has idealized these women as if they were women. As such, the cinematography from Jarin Blaschke regards them with a rapt fascination that he does the Icelandic landscapes that surround heroes and villains.
The glories and apathy of the wild around them are cut wide by The Northman. It also means crashing beaches, rolling green hills, and towering forests, as well as a raging volcano, where the final battle is fated to be held. In The Northman, the beauty contrasted with the brutality created a chaotic visual splendor. This movie left me numb.
Credit: Aidan Monaghan / © 2022 Focus Features, LLC
I appreciate the world Eggers has built, it's so tidy that you feel like you're in a war zone. Amleth is dedicating his existence and identity to avenge his father who has become a faded memory. I did not feel it.
I have never been a fan of the preferred performance style. His films have a clunky theatricality as if his stars are on an ill-lit stage, performing Shakespeare to the back row. It feels false or forced to act amid so many design choices. The anguish of Amleth is not something that I could connect with because of the performance by Skarsg. His hulking shoulders and flexing muscles show a warrior, but give us no access to his soul. Kidman and Taylor-Joy give their characters an edge of grandiosity that makes them feel mythic but not real. Some roles work with such extravagance, like the one in The Lighthouse, where Willem Dafoe is playing another wise fool. Their screentime is cut short, so we might focus on a hero who is hard to root for. As we get to know Amleth, he watches the slaughter of innocent children. Why should I care about him if he doesn't feel anything?
Maybe he overplays his hand with the violence. Audience members were laughing at the grim reveals of Amleth's slaughtered victims as his campaign of vengeance grew more audacious. The sternness of these men and the violence that turns limbs into a sculpture are both comical. It is not funny as much as it sounds. The Northman is filled with conflict between the real and the fanciful, between the absurd and the brutal, and between the beautiful and the silly. The execution of such stories feels hollow, capturing the horror but undercutting the heart.
The Northman opens on April 22.
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