Cinema Styles: The Northman’s Compass points to revenge
Film: The Northman (2022)
Director: Robert Eggers (The Lighthouse, The Witch)
Cast: Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Claes Bang, Ethan Hawke, Anya Taylor-joy, Willem Dafoe, Björk
How to Watch: In Theaters Rating: R Runtime: 137 minutes Genres: Action, Adventure, Drama
The Northman is the newest film from idiosyncratic filmmaker Robert Eggers. Set in Iceland in the year 914, it’s a brutal revenge epic about a young Viking prince on a mission to rescue a loved one and avenge the murder of another. The plot is based on the story of Amleth, a Danish text written by Saxo Grammaticus around 1200.
If this story seems familiar, it’s because it was William Shakespeare’s inspiration for his 1601 play The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Eggers was interested in this source material because he was familiarized with The Bard’s writing from a young age; his father being a college professor that focused on Shakespeare’s works. This film shows the timelessness of a well-told tale, intriguing to modern audiences as much as it was in 1200 and 1601.
This unconventional film is filled with brutal violence and beautiful imagery. It’s weird in all the best ways, and often breaks from expectations. The story concerns sorcery, legacy, fate, vengeance, and an incredible fight scene at the edge of a volcano. The savagery on display in the film depicts human nature as barbarous, and even though it’s set more than a thousand years ago, the prominence of violence in its society isn’t that different from our own.
One of the driving factors for violence in the film is the idea of revenge. Prince Amleth is seeking retribution, and will stop at nothing to achieve his goal. He describes himself as having an “icy river of hate in his veins.” In many ways, this film flips the idea of the vengeance tale on its head and defies preconceptions about these kinds of stories. For example, the movie explores the disconnect that occurs when someone tries to save a person that doesn’t want to be saved.
The Northman also examines the oppositional forces of the heart and the mind, and the conflict that often arises between what one thinks and what one feels. At one point, Amleth states his “heart knows only revenge.” Knowledge is a quality often associated with the mind, not the heart, so the fact Amleth thinks with his heart shows his disjointed view of reality.
The clash between the heart and the mind is reflected through the repetitive violence depicted in the film, with multiple characters being killed by beheading or being stabbed through the heart. One of the most surreal scenes brings the viewer inside of one of the character’s hearts. The contents of which include multiple human skeletons floating around within it.
The dichotomy between the heart and the mind feeds into the larger one at play in the entire film. Opposing forces compliment and necessitate the existence of one another. At one point, Amleth says he lives “a life of death” and when confronted with choosing between kindness for his kin or hate for his enemies, he says “I choose both.” This is a film that allows for oppositional ideas to coexist with equal importance.
After all, this is a film that often sees humans behaving more like wild animals than beings capable of rational thought. Amleth in particular seems to be part dog, starting with an early scene with him as a young man participating in a succession ceremony. He’s instructed to pretend to be a dog as he laps up a hallucinogenic potion. Amleth exhibits doglike qualities during later scenes in the movie, showing his beastlike nature overcoming any sense of reason that might exist within him.
Robert Eggers is one of the most talented filmmakers working today, and The Northman sees him expanding his scope, scale, and budget. Thankfully, his unique style as a film director remains intact. He has no interest in making a movie set in modern times. His films all take place in the past, and he meticulously obsesses over portraying each time period with painstaking accuracy.
Research is a major part of Eggers’ process, and he hired archaeologist Neil Price and literary scholar Katrin Fridriksdottir as historical consultants on The Northman. Eggers sees the atmosphere of a movie as an “accumulation of details,” so when preparing for each project, no aspect is too small or insignificant. To get inside the heads of his characters, and to help the actors do the same, he makes sure everything from the clothing to the architecture is as accurate to the time period and location as possible.
Eggers doesn’t hold the hand of his audience. Instead, he throws the viewer into an unfamiliar world and challenges them to catch up. He makes no effort to make characters more palatable for modern audiences, refusing to bend them to our contemporary perspective. We’re often left perplexed and intrigued by their decisions.
The gestation of this film occurred over a long period of time. Lead actor Alexander Skarsgård had been wanting to make a Viking-focused film for more than a decade, and approached Eggers with the idea. Eggers didn’t have his next film planned yet, but had recently traveled to Iceland and became enamored with the landscape, culture, and atmosphere. He saw this film as an opportunity to work with the talented Skarsgård while also exploring his newfound love for all things Icelandic.
The film’s story started to take shape after Eggers met with Iceland’s most famous citizen: the legendary songwriter Björk. They became friends and she introduced him to Sjón, an Icelandic author whose books focus on witchcraft. The two hit it off, and ended up cowriting the screenplay for The Northman together. Björk also plays a memorable role in the film as the Seeress, a magical being that gives Amleth a prophecy. She’s incredible in this brief scene, her first film performance since her masterful work in Dancer in the Dark (2000).
The Northman is filled with other actors who do so much with ittle onscreen time. Oscar-winner Nicole Kidman and Oscar-nominee Ethan Hawke are reliably marvelous as Amleth’s mother and father, and though they barely appear in the film, their performances are some of the best they’ve ever given. Kidman in particular shows a surprising intensity that’s always been hinted at but never displayed. This film taps into a terrifying viciousness beneath the surface and makes one wonder what else this talented actor is concealing.
Another notable performance is Willem Dafoe as Heimir the Fool. Dafoe facilitates the aforementioned hallucinogenic ritual scene early on, and it’s easily the best scene in the movie. As the potion distorts reality, Eggers brings the audience along for the ride, experiencing the disorientation with the characters as a delightfully unhinged Dafoe accentuates the feeling of reality slipping away.
The acting in the film can’t be discussed without mentioning Alexander Skarsgård. The 45-year-old Swedish actor, and eldest son of legendary actor Stellan Skarsgãrd, has amassed a collection of great performances in his brief career thus far. His portrayal of Amleth is certainly one of his best. This comes as no surprise, as his character deals with legacy and fate, appropriate for a man who’s following in his father’s footsteps as an actor of high esteem.
The Northman is one of the most beautifully filmed movies made in recent memory, and that’s thanks to the collaboration between Robert Eggers and his Director of Photography, Jarin Blaschke. This is their third feature film together, with 2019’s incomparable The Lighthouse earning Blaschke an Academy Award nomination.
The Northman sees Eggers and Blaschke once again creating an otherworldly atmosphere with images they seemingly conjure out of thin air. Like the mysticism featured in this story, these
two are magical beings. The creativity and technical expertise they have showcased with this film is absolutely astounding.
The Northman was filmed in a highly unusual way, especially for an action-packed Viking revenge film. Instead of filming 20-plus shots each day, like most movies, this one only did about three to four shots per day. Most of the individual shots in this film are quite long and required extensive choreography on the part of the actors as well as the camera operator. The most notable of these long takes is the first Viking raid; one of The Northman’s most memorable scenes. Shot in a four-minute singletake, it took the crew 25 attempts before they got it right. Eggers and Blaschke prefer filming in long takes because it helps to keep viewers immersed in the world they have so diligently designed.
The Northman is a film that takes its audience on a journey to a world they would otherwise never have access to. This movie is a time machine and a window into a dreamlike hellscape. It delights while also instilling fear. Robert Eggers and his team have created something spectacular, and one of the best films of the year so far.
Bobby Styles studied Film at UCLA, and worked as an editor and producer on several film, commercial, and music video projects in Los Angeles. He currently teaches the intermediate and advanced Video Production courses in the Multimedia & Technology Academy at Monache High School. His column appears in The Recorder every Tuesday.