“Northman” is a violent feast for the senses
140 min-
You never would accuse Robert Eggers of being just another filmmaker.
He made the world take notice with his 2015 feature debut, the period horror film “The Witch,” which he followed up in 2019 with the psychological ordeal that was “The Lighthouse.”
Now comes his Viking movie.
In his director’s statement for “The Northman” — a largely stunning, often-offbeat movie — Eggers talks of wanting to make “the definitive Viking movie.”
Apparently, he was more or less “meh” about it. However, that changed after he and his wife visited Iceland in 2015, where he found himself imagining “solitary tenth-century figures on horseback” against the region’s almost-unbelievable landscapes.
This newfound passion eventually led him to Alexander Skarsgard, the one-time “True Blood” actor who for years had been working to star in and produce a Viking movie.
Skarsgard turns in an impressive performance in a movie that is both beautiful and brutal. Its opening moments, in which thunder crashes around a mountain and a man with a gravelly voice addresses the Norse god Odin, are guttural and forceful.
Based on the legend of Amleth, “The Northman” shares some major story beats with Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” While Skarsgard portrays Prince Amleth as a man, it begins around 900 A.D. with a younger version played by Oscar Novak.
Amleth is excited for the return of his father, King Aurvandil (Ethan Hawke), to him and his mother, Queen Gudrún (Nicole Kidman), in the fictitious island kingdom of Hrafnsey, located somewhere around the Orkney and Shetland Islands, near the top of present-day Great Britain.
Fearing he may not have much time left on this earth, Aurvandil concludes he must prepare Amleth for what lies ahead of him — including a duty to avenge his father’s future death. And thus we get a wild ritual shared by the two and orchestrated by the court jester and valued adviser to the king, Heimir the Fool (Willem Dafoe), serving here as a shamanlike figure.
Soon, Aurvandil is killed, not by opposing forces but by his brother, Fjölnir (Claes Bang), who takes Hrafnsey — and Gudrún — for himself. He also orders his men to kill Amleth, but the boy is able to flee.
Twenty years later, Amleth is raiding Slavic villages with other Viking Berserkers. At one brutality-laden stop, he encounters a seeress (Bjork), who reminds him of his fate and responsibility for vengeance.
Having learned his uncle has lost the kingdom to a greater force and now runs a farm in Iceland, Amleth disguises himself as a slave and boards a ship bound for the area. A real slave, Olga of the Birch Forest (Anya Taylor-joy), knows he is an imposter but stays quiet, the two forming a bond that will remain strong long after they arrive at the farm.
There, Amleth proves himself to be more capable than most slaves, impressing Fjölnir and Gudrún and gaining him certain privileges and responsibilities. All the while, he schemes to avenge his father and rescue his mother and is willing to unleash a hellish new reality onto his unsuspecting uncle.
Eggers co-wrote “The Northman” with Icelandic poet, novelist, lyricist and screenwriter Sjón (“Lamb”), and they have crafted a story that, while relatively simple and familiar, is rich with detail. They have infused it with supernatural touches that, Eggers says, would be seen as realistic to the characters. (Well, maybe, but we won’t quibble.)
And many of its details come to glorious life thanks largely to director of photography Jarin Blaschke, who also worked on Eggers’ other features. Iceland, especially, looks incredible and dramatic — and not quite in the same way a 4K video of the country you may pull up on Youtube to show off your television does — but it’s the movie’s elaborate tracking shots that are most impressive.
In front of the camera, Skarsgard — who clearly put on muscle mass for the role — is a force. The singularly focused Amleth isn’t the most dynamic of characters, but the actor keeps you reasonably invested in his plight.
Bang, a Danish actor who played key parts in two 2020 arthouse films about art, “The Burnt Orange Heresy” and “The Last Vermeer,” is, well, rather artful in his portrayal of Fjölnir. That the character isn’t your typical villain also is a credit to Eggers and Sjón.
One of the disappointments of “The Northman” is that the scribes didn’t make Taylor-joy’s role meatier. The film simply would have been stronger with more of her.
Some may also be let down by the movie’s pacing; it has what could be considered an odd rhythm, and for all its action, it can be slow at times.
That said, “The Northman” is more accessible than “The Lighthouse” — and maybe “The Witch,” as well — and the hope here is it earns a wide audience.