From visionary director Robert Eggers comes “The Northman,” an action-filled epic that follows a young Viking prince on his quest to avenge his father’s murder.
When I first heard about this project, the cast list excited me, and the known director always gives me a thrill. Robert Eggers’ work seems singularly cast on bringing the past to life just as it was, not as we see it. Whether it’s puritan New England, vicious coastal lighthouses, or a Northern revenge saga, his penchant for exacting speech and anthropological detail work makes him a standout for something unique. However, the picture seemed almost too big to guarantee returns this time. A story of reshoots surfaced weeks ago, and it drew my attention to the less-than-Eggers feel of this movie compared to his previous works. What’s impressive is that despite this feeling watered down from an Auteur’s vision, it still wholly rocks as a Viking revenge drama thanks to the vicious combat and beautiful cinematography.
Alexander Skarsgård plays Amleth, the son of Viking tribe chief Aurvandil (Ethan Hawke.) After witnessing his Uncle Fjolnir murder his brother and carry off his mother as a young boy, Amleth escapes the Viking village hell-bent on revenge. When we see him again, he’s matured into a violent and vicious fighter, capturing slaves for Russian troops. A chance encounter with Olga (played by Anya Taylor-Joy) reminds him of his murderous quest and sends him on a path to slaughter his now-diminished Uncle. Once he gets there, he realizes it’s not enough to kill him. He must torture his Uncle. Amleth then begins a plan of torturing Fjolnir over three days before committing to the final battle. Along his way, he will fall in love with Olga and choose between “kindness for his kin and hate for his enemies.”
The film moves at a breakneck pace. We quickly go through Amleth’s short childhood. We see his loving father and beatific life through his eyes: quaint and joyful. The murder takes place in the same 24 hours his father returns home from war and jumps just as quickly to eighteen years down the line. Even at two hours and some change, the film feels like a mere ninety minutes, taking time only to stop and gander when it comes to religious psychedelic rituals. The speed of the film doesn’t feel rushed, but it’s decidedly not the languished pace of Eggers’ previous films.
Instead, it accommodates everything people expect of this movie: brutal violence and arthouse psychedelia. The roving camera performs long takes of many scenes sweeping over brutal details of Viking conquest: rape, murder, slave-taking. It never neglects the horrors of war but shifts the focus on it as details in the larger combat taking place. In an early battle scene, Skarsgård wanders a village, slaughtering guards with wild abandon as comrades eagerly slash their foes in the background. It’s all shrouded in mist or cloaked in penetrable darkness, lending the action a sense of gravitas. Even the final battle takes place between two naked men, slashing each other to bits inside an explosive volcano caldera where any misstep could spell death. Its brutal fighting meets Degas’s lighting.
Skarsgård anchors the movie with his powerful performance. The man howls like a wolf and grunts and cries his way through everything. I’m surprised he didn’t tear a vocal cord. Partnered with Anya Taylor-Joy’s feral and demure acting, the two hold the movie together with a third leg of the stool belonging to Claes Bang. It’s not necessarily an acting piece, but they put it all together with their ferocity.
In the end, this movie knows what it’s about: violent people enacting violent revenge with occasional visits from Valkyries and gods. Eggers’ famous hallucinatory filmmaking carries the dream sequences well and elevates the hand-to-hand combat into something artistic if terrifying. We get what’s promised when it comes to “The Northman”: Vikings brutally murdering each other and witches casting spells. It’s awe-inducing, horrifying, brutal, and elegant in ways Eggers can deliver, but also palatable to audiences, unlike anything Eggers has done before. Despite the reshoots, this movie’s an absolute banger.
Now available on Digital HD and on 4K Ultra HD™, Blu-ray™ & DVD June 7th
