Directed by:
Robert EggersCinematography:
Jarin BlaschkeCast:
Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Claes Bang, Ethan Hawke, Anya Taylor-Joy, Gustav Lindh, Willem Dafoe, Phill Martin, Eldar Skar, Olwen Fouéré, Edgar Abram (more)VOD (4)
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From visionary director Robert Eggers comes The Northman, an action-filled epic that follows a young Viking prince on his quest to avenge his father's murder. (Universal Pictures US)
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Reviews (19)
An animalistic raw Hamlet revenge fest that takes a considerable step back after a riveting opening half hour. Not necessarily to a worse film, no, but to a different one. For me it's a shame, it looked better in the first part, and in the second, it has too much competition with many similarly conceived films. Either way, there's no need to worry, even the more audience-friendly Eggers is still enough of a maverick with a vision that's not for everyone. Though they could (and should) have avoided that “Snyder look” at the end.
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Eggers’s take on Hamlet conceived as Conan the Barbarian with a bit of Norse mythology thrown in. This also describes the reason that The Northman is fascinating and why, at the same time, it doesn’t achieve the aura of revelation like the director’s previous two films. Whereas The Witch and The Lighthouse were supremely distinctive and original works, The Northman remains a variation on a familiar story. Therefore, viewers may be less absorbed in the narrative and less impressed by the wow effect that they would get from watching something essentially new and more aware of the finesse of execution and adaptive shifts. On the other hand, Eggers’s formalistic signature – from the well-thought-out long shots to the expressive design – is awe-inspiring in and of itself. The film also successfully evokes intense physical experiences by drawing viewers into a world of pagan mythology and merciless brutality. Eggers has stripped Hamlet of its Shakespearean literal insight into the protagonist, but that doesn’t mean that he has dispensed with its tragic or even topical elements. The fatal flaw of his Prince Amleth does not consist in the character’s indecision or any other character trait. Eggers bases his narrative on the contrast between personal will and supposed predestination, which he reveals as an extended arm of the patriarchy as a system of hereditary egocentrism built on self-destructive ideals of masculinity. These are motifs that Eggers had already explored in his previous films, though it is necessary to recognise that he depicted them there in more dreadful and disturbing outlines.
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Eggers doesn’t get in a hurry and he gets off on the symbolism of the numerous dream sequences, but he never finds the time to explain and depict the key twists in the protagonist’s decisions in proportion to their importance. This is due either to unfortunate editing or to the screenplay by a filmmaker who knows how to do a lot of things, except for the most important thing, which is to tell the story in a dramaturgically complex way and to work sensitively with its motifs. The Northman entertained me with its spirit of a bloodthirsty wolf, visuals, distinctive cinematic world and cruelty of the likes that we don’t see in the current mainstream due to its incorrectness. But the more time that passes since I saw it, the more I see it rather as a boldly presented B-movie with embarrassing content than as an “art-house epic”.
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After experiencing The Lighthouse, I was quite worried about The Northman, suspecting Eggers of casting Kidman as a poster attraction, so that the widest possible base, which is not indifferent to her name, would be interested in the film... But everything is different in the end. It's as if I'd forgotten that Kidman has, quite by default, worked with notable directors before, from Kubrick to von Trier. Additionally, for viewers of the Vikings series, The Northman can be a nice tie-in to the broader theme. There is no reason to be afraid or prejudiced; on the contrary, it is advisable to enjoy The Northman on the big screen and let yourself be carried away by Icelandic nature, just like Sjöström once did.
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The Witch remains my favourite, but I definitely enjoyed The Northman more than the overrated The Lighthouse. In the first half, I believed I would give it a full rating. It’s harsh, stylish and in the raid on the village scene, Alexander Skarsgård is a true “animal”. What I enjoyed the most were the shamanic rituals and the mythical scenes, balancing between hallucination/dream and the supernatural. But in the end, I have to deduct a point for something Eggers tried for the first time in this film, which didn’t convince me much: normal, positive human emotions; love, to be more specific. The Witch and The Lighthouse didn’t have anything positive, but here there’s a rather important story arc (between Skarsgård and Taylor-Joy) built on love, and, in my opinion, it doesn’t work at all. So much so, in fact, that until the last moment I was convinced that the infatuation on one side or the other (or both sides) was just a ruse that would result in some evil twist.
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