The Northman

This a bold film from Robert Eggers moving from the smaller more intellectually driven The Witch and The Lighthouse to the blockbuster with The Northman. It’s a fair step up in grandeur, spectacle, sound and music, with the male leads playing their part in the gym. But it would be mistake to assume that the brawn has totally taken over as running through it are an intriguing series of ideas that while not new give this film more to ponder and reflect on.

The plot all told is fairly basic with what appears to be a reasonably happy family situation with King Aurvandil (Ethan Hawke) his loving wife Gudrun (Nicole Kidman) and young son Amleth (Oscar Novak). The only fly in the ointment is his brother (Claes Bang) whom we can see all too soon as a troublemaker. Which is proved soon after when he murders his brother, witnessed by Amleth. A hunt starts for the boy, who escapes.

Amleth (now Alexandar Skarsgård) we pick up on a good few years later filled out, in a longboat and a Viking raiding part that rapes and pillages after a wolf-based dance and ritual. Its bloody stuff but they get what they wanted slaves for a shepherd who happens to be his uncle who was forced to move after he was ousted.

Seeing an opportunity for revenge and save his mother he disguises himself as a slave and sneaks onto the boat to Iceland. Here he meets Olga (Anya Taylor-Joy) who sees he’s not a slave, and falls in love with her. He ingratiates himself with the Fjölnír clan though with the knowledge he will never be considered on their level. From there he plots his revenge.

Robert and Sjón Eggers’ script is purple and ripe to bursting with accents to match which goes part and parcel with the generally ripped torsos of the main male protagonists. However once the viewer gets past that what we have is an absorbing blend of action, intrigue and ritual.

The action is on a spectacular level gritty, muddy bloody and violent fought out on great landscapes and the fires of hell. Based on the Norse Legend of Amleth, this has the politics and intrigue of Shakespeare and I would suggest Greek tragedy. In particular the latter with the familial twists towards a pre-destined fate.

There is lot of ritual in The Northman with Willem Dafoe and Björk having choice cameos. This does get a bit repetitive though reflecting it serves to identify the various clans as having their own identities rather than lumping them all together as Vikings.

There isn’t a great deal of humour here though a sequence as the beginning of what looked like an early version of hockey or lacrosse brought to mind Monty Python’s Batley Townswomens' Guild recreation of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The actors are all first class and do manage to successfully create an empathy for the characters, even those that appear the ghastliest. After three films it too early to say that Eggers has a regular troupe but along with Defoe and Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson turns up as a sea captain.

The Northman is bold and brutal in its depiction of violence and treatment of family and people. It’s an epic that draws on ancient myth and magic, that feed into an intrinsic belief that they are in the hands of the gods, and nothing more than their playthings.