THE NORTHMAN : Tuesday 26th April 2022.

Having this week returned from a break in England, which should explain my absence from this Blog for the past month or so, I saw the MA15+ Rated 'THE NORTHMAN' at my local independent movie theatre earlier this week. Directed, Co-Produced and Co-Written by Robert Eggers whose previous two feature films were 'The Witch' in 2015 and 'The Lighthouse' in 2019, this epic historical action film cost US$90M to produce and has so far garnered largely widespread critical acclaim, having thus far recouped US$27M. Following its World Premier showcasing in Stockholm on 28th March, advance screenings we held in certain cities in early April before its wide release (including Australia and the US) from last week onwards. Normal service of my Blog BTW, will be resumed form next week onwards. 

The film opens up with a number of Viking longboats sailing towards a remote windswept island upon which sits a settlement. It is A.D.895 and the returning King Aurvandill War-Raven (Ethan Hawke) is welcomed back triumphantly with the riches he has pillaged from various overseas lands. He is met by his wife, the Queen Gudrun (Nicole Kidman) and his young son and heir Prince Amleth (Oscar Novak). Also in the returning party is Fjolnir (Claes Bang), Aurvandill's younger brother and Amleth's uncle. Later on Aurvandill and Amleth take part in a spiritual ceremony that marks Amleths passage into manhood. The ceremony is overseen by Aurvandill's jester Heimir (Willem Dafoe). 

The next morning as father and son are exiting the place of the ceremony, several warriors on horseback all descend upon the King wounding him with arrows and spears. Fjolnir is among them as the leader of the pack, and ultimately beheads Aurvandill. Having hidden behind a rock nearby and witnessed the slaying of his father, his village massacred and his mother taken away screaming by his uncle, Amleth flees the island by row boat repeatedly uttering the words 'I will avenge my father, save my mother and kill my uncle'. 

We then fast forward to years later and the now adult Amleth (Alexander Skarsgard) is rowing a Viking longboat down river in the land of Rus. It seems that he was found by a band of Vikings and raised among them as a berserker. After a bloody attack on a village, Amleth comes across a Seeress (Bjork) in the temple of Svetovit. She predicts that Amleth will exact out his revenge on Fjolnir. Amleth learns that Fjolnir was overthrown by Harald of Norway and now lives in exile in Iceland. Amleth sneaks aboard a slave ship headed for Iceland. Posing as a slave, he encounters a Slavic slave named Olga of the Birch Forest (Anya Taylor-Joy), who lays claim to being a sorceress. Upon arrival, Amleth and the other slaves are shackled and taken to Fjolnir's farm, where it is revealed that Queen Gudrun, now Fjolnir's wife, has borne him a son, Gunnar (Elliott Rose).

One night, Amleth flees the farm and comes across a He-Witch (Ingvar Eggert Sigurosson), who facilitates a spiritual discussion between Amleth and the late Heimir, revealed to have been murdered by Fjolnir by gouging out his eyes, cutting out his tongue and slicing off his ears while he still lived. He then tells Amleth about Night Blade, a magical sword that can only be drawn at night, and its whereabouts, which Amleth later obtains through fighting and overcoming an undead spirit for the sword.

The next day Amleth is chosen to compete in a game of knattleikr. Needless to say this is a brutal and bloody game which turns violent and Amleth saves Gunnar, who runs to play, from the rival team's champion Thorfinnr (Hafþor Julius Bjornsson). Amleth wrestles Thorfinnr to the ground and repeatedly heads butts his opponent until his skull cracks open. As a reward, Thorir (Gustav Lindt), Fjolnir's eldest and adult son allows Amleth to claim Olga as his wife and makes him a supervisor over the other slaves, but warns him that he will never be free of a life of slavery himself. 

During the celebrations later that same evening, Amleth and Olga make love. They commit to work together to overthrow Fjolnir and his men. Over the ensuing nights, Amleth kills a number of Fjolnir's men. Olga meanwhile mixes the men's food with magic mushrooms, causing them all to hallucinate, so allowing Amleth to enter Fjolnir's house. There he meets his mother, Gudrun, who tells him that she was originally taken into slavery, and that Amleth was the result of rape. She also reveals that it was her order for Fjolnir to kill Aurvandill and Amleth, and that she prefers Fjolnir and her new son Gunnar. Amleth leaves, distraught and angered and promptly kills Thorir in his sleep and rips out his heart. 

Fjolnir is determined to find his son's killer and promptly begins slicing the throats of random slaves if they don't give him the answer he is looking for. He threatens to kill Olga, resulting in Amleth revealing himself as responsible and trading Olga's life for Thorir's heart. Amleth is taken captive, strung up and severely beaten to within an inch of his life. Amleth is released from his restraints by a flock of ravens who peck away at his bindings. Olga rescues Amleth from the farm and the two escape, planning to go to Amleth's kin on Orkney island. Departing Iceland by boat, Amleth kisses a wound on Olga's throat, caused by the knife held to her neck previously by Fjolnir. This triggers a vision that she is pregnant with twins, and believing that his children will never be safe as long as Fjolnir lives, Amleth, against Olga's wishes, determines to finally kill Fjolnir and jumps overboard and swims back to shore.

Back at the farm, under cover of darkness, Amleth frees the slaves and kills the majority of Fjolnir's men. The slaves burn the farm down to the ground. While looking for Fjolnir, Amleth is attacked by Gudrun and, after, by Gunnar. Amleth defends himself, but, in the ensuing melee, kills both, but is seriously wounded from multiple stab wounds. Fjolnir discovers the bodies and arranges a fight to the death with Amleth at the Gates of Hel—the actively spewing volcano Hekla, to resolve their conflict. At the volcano, the pair engage in a fierce swordfight, resulting in Fjolnir being decapitated and Amleth fatally wounded. As Amleth lies dying, he has a future vision of Olga embracing their twin children safe on Orkney, and sees his ascent on horseback to Valhalla.

'The Northman' will not be a film for everyone, which probably explains the lacklustre Box Office performance (as at the time of writing), but having said that I don't think that Director Robert Eggers is too worried about that given the overwhelming critical acclaim the film has generated. For me, I certainly was entertained and thoroughly engaged for the duration of the 135 minute run time by the authenticity of the production values that Eggers insisted on, the storyline (which while simple enough is hardly complex but engrossing nonetheless), the strong cast of A-list talent, and the brutality and blood soaked violence of the Viking era where life meant so much less than it does today. All of that said, the film does labour at times and the VFX of Amleth's family tree branching out from his heart with passing images of his ancestors and ultimately his own children felt clunky and somewhat ill paced. Despite these minor observations however, Eggers continues to demonstrate his ability over his craft and this time with a much more sizeable budget that expands on the historical worlds he created in his two previous cinematic outings and offers the viewer an original gripping story that alas, we see far too little of today. 

'The Northman' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-