Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Claes Bang, Ethan Hawke, Anya Taylor-Joy, Gustav Lindh, Elliott Rose, Willem Dafoe, Phill Martin, Eldar Skar, Olwen Fouéré, Edgar Abram, Jack Gassman, Ingvar Sigurdsson, Oscar Novak, Jack Walsh, Björk, Ian Whyte, Katie Pattinson, Andrea O’Neill, Rebecca Ineson, Katie Dickie, Ísadóra Bjarkardóttir Barney, Kevin Horsham, Seamus O’ Hara, Scott Sinclair, Tadhg Murphy, James Yates, Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, Ian Gerard Whyte, Ralph Ineson, Murray McArthur, Nille Glæsel, Jonas Lorentzen, Magne Osnes, Ineta Sliuzaite, Finn Lafferty, Jon Campling, Helen Roche, Faoileann Cunningham, Gareth Parker, Mark Fitzgerald, Gavin Peden, Eric Higgins, Matt Symonds.
In one film, the neglect by English speaking cinema of Nordic and Scandinavian tradition and mythology is wiped clean and given the prominence it truly deserves.
Robert Eggers’ epic tale, The Northman, is absolutely a film to take seriously, to go beyond the sense of heroic and ambitious fantasy, it is a film that delves further than say beautiful insights such as 2003’s Kitchen Tales, the 2011 mockumentary Troll Hunter, and which in terms of the use of language rates as high as anything cinema produced before the 1960s. It is a mix perhaps of what Beowulf could have, should have been, 2000s Gladiator and 2015’s sublime Icelandic film Rams (Hrútar), a film that encompasses true Norse legend and brings the legenf of Amleth to greater prominance in a time when heroes are drawn rather than lifted from literature.
Filled with pathos, absolutely immersed in muscle, redemption, betrayal, and death, it is fear and love, of hate, suspicion and belief and wrapped up in an epic that is a true sense of the word, a story written without the need to embellish, for the drama that unfolds, naturally will have the viewer gripped in fascination of the setting, of the race memory perhaps that gives the English language part of its varied text and meaning.
To sugar coat a description of a film or any art is a diservice, almost bordering on cowardice, and whilst sensibilities have a place in the dialogue, to skirt the issue of violence in the film would be and insult, to downplay the fierce portrayal of sex, of sexuality and feminine persuasion would be offensive. It is within the context of our shared paths, our historical ties to a more natural state of being that the film is presented, and a film about Vikings, or old Norse lore would could be classed as neglecting that ancient rite, and if other films that take pleasure in pushing boundaries but have no resemblence to anything but shock and gore, of guilt free titilation, can have their day, then it is only reasonable that the very nature of north European heritage is explored and openly discussed without coyness being involved.
The Northman is a triumph of film making, it is glorious in its adaption, in the way the colour and definition meld and sway like ice cold water lapping at the feet of eternity, and one in which Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Claes Bang, Ethan Hawke, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Willem Dafoe excel in their roles with absolute clarity and persuasion.
Feel the cold of winter bite at your heels, feel the depth of despair, the passion of anger rise up, and understand what our ancestors felt as they battled daily; we in comparison have it easy, for we have never felt the wrath of The Northman.
Ian D Hall