"The Northman 2022" movie review

 The Northman

It's almost deceptive to call "The Northman" filmmaker Robert Eggers' most approachable movie. Prior productions by the filmmaker—the puritanical hallucinations of "The Witch" and the lonely, mermaid fetishization of "The Lighthouse"—traded in conventional, ambient freak-outs for typical macabre American mythology. The strongest elements of previous movies are repeated in "The Northman," albeit with less success. By drawing viewers through a fierce attachment to familial honor, it forces audiences to deconstruct oppressive patriarchal values, poisonous masculine heroism, and the foolishness of retaliation. Unlike in his earlier works, Eggers' kind of psychological shock is bolder here and more forceful in bursts, yet it hardly succeeds on the basis of boldness alone.

The word "elevated" was disparagingly used to describe Eggers' style of horror when "The Witch" was originally published. With a new devil-may-care enthusiasm for the ominous that pushed the auditory and visual boundaries of otherworldly angst, the New England filmmaker crafted genre-defying frights. With "The Northman," Eggers combines his well-known interests in the fundamental weirdness that runs through old mythology with slicker aesthetics and larger emotions, played out across a grander scale. It tells the story of Amleth (Alexander Skarsgrd), a huge, furious Viking warrior prince who seeks vengeance for a Scandinavian realm that has vanished. Modern audiences will be familiar with this legend through its well-known English version, Hamlet, which recalls unwavering Amleth's drive to reclaim his usurped throne and was as brutal as the scorching countryside.

But this isn't your standard hero's journey with a handsome royal. Amleth is located in a different, harsher kill-or-be-killed era where the only possible fate for a monarch is to perish by the sword. In a carnal ritual taking place in a smoke-filled, otherworldly cavern that involves a mystical invocation to the ancestors led by Heimir the Fool (a deranged Willem Dafoe), Amleth and Aurvandill whoop and holler on all fours like wolves, his father King Aurvandill (Ethan Hawke), who has just recently returned from war damaged and wounded, worships this reality. We are all merely rabid creatures living within flabby sacks of human skin in the world of "The Northman."Our only duties are fundamental: to vindicate our fathers and protect our mothers and kingdoms. The towering black-bearded Fjölnir (Claes Bang), who tragically brings sorrow into young Amleth's life by killing his father and taking him to distant shores where he becomes a bitter, musclebound warrior, ignores the pledge given by his mother Queen Gudrn (Nicole Kidman).

Jarin Blaschke and Louise Ford, who worked together on "The Lighthouse" and "The Witch," who also lensed and edited the movie, are largely responsible for its polished aesthetic flair. The director uses more camera movement than usual. Amleth and a group of Vikings wearing bear-pelt headdresses rampage through a village meticulously looking for prey in a horrific scene that Ford expertly edited. The blood-soaked bodies and the spine-chilling macho shouts coming from the greedy guys are fed to the camera's ravenous appetite for flesh in the scene's intricate tracking shot. In one scene, Amleth maintains an unwavering gaze into the camera against the backdrop of a burning house filled with distraught villagers, evoking Elem Klimov's antiwar film "Come and See."This isn't a picture of a youngster horribly scarred by combat like Klimov's movie. A man driven by bloodshed and conflict, this one is vicious and stubborn.

"The Northman" is a visceral film with codas to the inevitable darker corners of nature: animal, elemental, and the harshest of all, human. It is the kind of movie where even the mud has rage. They all vibrate to Robin Carolan and Sebastian Gainsborough's somber music, Eggers' distinctive twisted soundscapes, and ambient reverbs and decaying delays that reach back to the beginning of time. Similar efforts are made in the trippy hypnotic dreamscapes; for example, the expert VFX team depicts Amleth's family tree, a dynamic representation of divine law, as a blue glowing artery fern growing from his heart and branching out to include ours.It's only one of the mystical strands that entwine and occasionally tangle with "The Northman," a movie in which Björk plays a blind seer who directs Amleth toward a sword with a dull-less blade and an insatiable desire for murder.

For many, "The Green Knight" by David Lowery will be an all-too-common analogy. However, "The Northman" functions on a different level of emotion. This is a tale of unbridled ambition bent toward immoral goals in a society that values such malleability. This does not imply that these flawed characters do not believe in justice. Amleth is driven by a just fury. In a society that has eradicated male vulnerability, it is up to Skarsgrd to transform this man's suppressed feelings into a tangible fury. His relationship with Olga (Anya Taylor-Joy, who is reunited with Eggers), a slave potion maker who is also seeking retribution against Fjölnir, isn't all sappy love songs.You demonstrate love, you actualize the erotic, and you let your horny wrath take center stage by killing. Amleth also swings his blade about a lot. Skarsgrd, Taylor-Joy, and notably Kidman provide totally committed performances in this period piece that is full of blatant silliness and cheesy suggestive one-liners.

In that way, "The Northman" frequently makes mistakes in its quest for profundity. As much as Eggers and his co-author, the poet and novelist Sjón ("Lamb"), wish to explore the role of women in these stories, that aspect bobs unanchored just beneath the surface. With the exception of one spell, Olga adheres to genre norms without completely defying them. The final act drags along with a few false conclusions that attempt to reach a lyrical plain. In reality, the final confrontation between Fjölnir and Amleth in a volcano's mouth lacks any dramatic tension.A hero's journey and the expectation of fulfilling one's destiny, regardless of the repercussions, carry a toxic load, but the scene's overblown molten brouhaha doesn't adequately convey this idea.

Instead, this bloody Viking tale works best when viewed in isolation from one another. However, the parts are so exciting and so perfectly timed to furious, determined ends that they raise the entire movie. How, then, can one criticize the Valkyries for being "too much"? How is it possible to dismiss the dazzling, illogical flights of magic? What fun would that be, exactly? Even if you're not entirely pleased with "The Northman," it still makes you happy that it even exists.

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Cast

Alexander Skarsgård as Amleth

Nicole Kidman as Queen Gudrún

Claes Bang as Fjölnir the Brotherless

Ethan Hawke as King Aurvandil War-Raven

Anya Taylor-Joy as Olga of the Birch Forest

Gustav Lindh as Thórir the Proud

Elliott Rose as Gunnar

Willem Dafoe as Heimir the Fool

Björk as The Seeress

Rebecca Ineson as Halla the Maiden

Kate Dickie as Halldora the Pict

Ralph Ineson as Captain Volodymyr

Director

Robert Eggers

Writer

Robert Eggers

Sjón

Director of Photography

Jarin Blaschke

Editor

Louise Ford

Original Music Composer

Sebastian Gainsborough

Robin Carolan