Messy Ends - The Northman (2022) Review
This bloody Viking epic shows the unnatural isn't always unexplainable.
In the newest Robert Eggers directed film, exiled Viking prince turned musclebound berserker Amleth (Alexander Skarsgård) seeks vengeance against his uncle (Claes Bang) for the death of his father (Ethan Hawke) and captivity of his mother (Nicole Kidman). But nothing is as simple as it appears in this blood drenched tale ripe with superstition and deception.
Eggers’ take on Norse mythology and its ancient adherents is a far cry from the Marvel-fied strain that’s filled pop culture for the last two decades. The Northmen even surpasses other “adult” takes on Viking with its honesty. Amleth not only witnesses his fellows killing and enslaving the weak and the helpless — he partakes in it.
The almost monument like style of filmmaking highlights the protagonist’s complicity: lingering, clean shots leave his actions unambiguous. The quirk of placing a character directly at the center of the frame further adds to that, making it clear that observer or offending party, Amleth has made his choice.
The action scenes show a remarkable amount of restraint for a film without much. There’s only a handful of real fights throughout the running time, with the rest spent on gorgeous Norse landscapes, treacherous voyages, and otherworldly occurrences.
For the action sequences we do get, Eggers’ clean style translates well, possessing tremendous weight while also being refreshingly easy to keep track of. Interestingly, the camera often pans away from Amleth’s various horrific deeds, while showing some other ones in full view.
With the content of the film, it hardly reads as appeasing ratings boards, instead reflecting how rote violence has become to these characters.
Beyond the usual Viking repertoire, Amleth shows plenty of more personal acts of cruelty as well, with Skarsgård perfectly realizes his driven warrior while also implying that he never grew past the worst day of his life.
His only real moments of humanity are with the witch and accomplice Olga of the Birch Forest (Anya Taylor-Joy) and even those are undermined by his singlemindedness.
It’s a difficult archetype to make riveting but The Northman’s tragic yet overtly vile protagonist feels long overdue with the recent glut of suspiciously spotless fanatical warriors in fiction.
On that note, the real accomplishment of The Northman is the disturbing, riveting quality it gives to the more spiritual moments. CGI is used to good effect for the more complex imagery and bizarre visions. The lone exception are some out of place blue foxes, Amleth’s mystical guides for much of the film.
But The Northman’s best offerings are accomplished through the actors’ performances and the camerawork, which in Eggers’ previous work has prized the strange. A blind priest goading Amleth’s group of pelt clad berserkers to transform into embodiments of their garb, an interpretation of Valkyries far from the chainmail bikini clad versions of most media — it all carries a hypnotic aura.
Of course, that’s the real throughline of The Northmen: the power of belief and the perils of when it’s called into question.
Throughout the film supernatural events occur, some beyond explanation but many others are quickly shown to exist only in the characters’ minds. Amleth’s own personal mythology drives him to extreme ends and impressive feats but unravels over the course of the film with disastrous results.
Subjecting himself to captivity and venturing far and wide, he discovers that a child’s understanding of his betrayal has done nothing to prepare him for the murky realities of the situation.
With that, The Northman presents an archetypical but still impactful look at the iconic Viking raider, refusing to pull any punches but without creating a power fantasy. It’s a dark, moody film that blurs the line between prophecy and the predictable results of revenge.
And there’s a strange beauty to all of it, something probably only Robert Eggers could accomplish considering the subject matter.
Messy Ends - The Northman (2022) Review
I heard this one was incredible. I haven't seen it myself, but this review is pushing me to go see it
I really enjoyed thie movie, and I feel you described an aspect of it in a way that I had not considered before: he has a childs understanding of what happened to him. That makes the story all the more tragic. That and being tied to what he thinks is his fate and having the outcome gratified by external forces (his father and the shaman) really puts a saddening perspective on his story. It makes me rethink the vision he had at the end of the movie, is that what he wanted/needed to see in order to accept what happened? Great review!