Rated: MA15+
Directed by: Robert Eggers
Written by: Sjón, Robert Eggers
Produced by: Mark Huffam, Lars Knudsen, Robert Eggers, Alexander Skarsgård, Arnon Milchan
Starring: Alexander Skarsgård, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicole Kidman, Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe and Björk.
‘We thirst for vengeance but cannot escape our fate.’
The Northman is set in a time when the gods are worshiped with blood and villages are plundered, the people chattel, either killed or taken as slaves.
Only the strong ones survive the pillaging. And if they live to arrive at their next destination, most wish they’d died in their homes.
The film opens with stencil against the grey imagery of ash billowing, belching from a volcano. It’s a brutal black and white world until a child, young prince Amleth (Oscar Novak) calls out: his father, King Auvand (Ethan Hawke) has returned home.
The King and Queen Gudrún (Nicole Kidman) reunite, but not for long.
After King Auvand is betrayed and killed by his half-brother, Feng (Claes Bang), Amleth escapes, swearing to avenge his father and to free his mother.
The film runs in chapters so Amleth grows, becoming a wolf (Alexander Skarsgård). Now he’s the brute, pillaging villages and talking slaves. Until he’s reminded by a Seeress (Björk) of his promise of vengeance.
There’s a touch of magic in the story telling by Robert Eggers, with expansive scenes of Nordic grasslands, black sand with running rivers and the quiet of snowflakes falling. The constant play of colour sets the mood of the film, with the black and white, the stark, to show the harsh fight for survival, to the red of fire, to a rebirth of green and new life.
The thread of the gods runs through the film like swords run through guts and throats and already cut-off noses; the Valkyrie rides a white horse into the heavens and the white-haired Olga (Anya Taylor-Joy), whom Amleth is destined to meet, can talk to the earth and evoke the wind.
The story’s about fate and the gods and family, betrayal and survival.
There’s a flair of the dramatic that needed strong performances to hold the push of violence and drama and magic. And Eggers achieved his vision – Kidman and Skarsgård particular highlights, with Willem Dafoe made for the role of Heimir the Fool – who’s, ‘wise enough to be the fool.’
The dramatic scenes have flair but are played with just enough restraint to add the right gravitas to the dialogue.
The violence too was intense but held back enough so as not to be disgusting but to allow a harsh reality.
Overall the best way I can describe, The Northman is a film of vengeance that is both brutal and beautiful.