Principal Cast: Mads Mikkelson, Alexander Mortan, Stewart Porter
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Genre: Adventure, drama.
The Basics
Circa 1000 A.D., a one-eyed Viking slave kills his captors and escapes with the aid of a young slave boy. In their flight for freedom, they come across a small group “Christian Viking” knights preparing to join the crusade to retake Jerusalem. One-eye and Are agree to travel with them and they set sail. Once at sea, the ship enters a dense fog that leaves the travelers lost and losing their faith. Once the fog clears, the group find themselves on the shores of a primitive and exotic land, where they are forced to face their inner demons and what is it they truly believe.
Recommendation
Let me be clear here: This is an art house movie. Fans of that style of cinema should appreciate this movie. Filmgoers who are looking for something to the tune of Braveheart, Conan, Lord of the Rings, or Kingdom of Heaven are going to be disappointed. There is some action, and it does get bloody, but there are no huge battle sequences or gratuitous displays of masculinity.
My take
*Spoiler Alert* Refn has said in interviews that he deliberately neglected historical contexts when making this film. He also described this movie as being a “cinematic acid trip”
I personally like these kind of movies. They force you to open your mind and think about what you are seeing and what it could possibly mean, and what you see in the film is based as much on what you bring with you to the piece as what you are seeing on the screen.
At the heart of it, each character suffers a crisis of faith and deal with it in different ways. When they are lost in the fog, a few interpret it as a curse brought on by the young Viking boy and try to kill him, which leads to their death at the hands of One-eye. When they come to shore, some believe they are in Hell while the general believes he has found an opportunity to create a new holy land. But in their pursuit of faith, they all meet their end. The only one who survives is Are, who is too young to understand what commitment faith can command.
The character of One-eye is something of an enigma. For one thing, he never speaks a word throughout the entire movie. He is also somewhat clairvoyant as he is able to see visions of death from both the past and future. One could say he is a Christ figure. All the characters who abandon their faith and go against him die violently. Of the two that follow, one finds peace in death (going to be with his sons who fell in battle) and the boy who followed him survives after One-eye drops his axe and submits himself to the primitives for execution. Also through his visions, One-eye knows the path that will bring him death, but he follows it anyway and submits to his fate in sacrifice to those that follow his way. I like the irony of this relationship between a Christ figure and a group of Christians, and I thought Refn did a good job separating faith from cause.
The location of the primitive land, like the other elements of the movie, is open to interpretation. In the context of the main story, it probably doesn’t matter. But, I personally could not ignore the fact that the “primitives” closely resembled native Americans, implying that somehow the group had sailed from Scandinavia to North America. As I said earlier, Refn makes no historical reference in the film, so theoretically, the mysterious land could be anywhere. But in movies like this, a lot of what we see comes from what we bring with us to the piece. So if this place is, in fact, America, the implication could be that this where faith in the masses dies and salvation is lost. Whether or not this is the case, this is something I personally got out of the movie.
I’ll be 100% in saying that this movie is not for everyone. In my opinion, this is one of the best films I’ve seen in the last few years, but art house films the defy convention and tradition are something I am into. It does move slowly at some points, and at times it can get a little confusing. But it is visually stunning as well as thought provoking and deeply emotional.
Interesting note: There are only 120 lines of dialogue spoken throughout the film.
Statistics
Cast Performance: Excellent. The actors in this film are somewhat know in the art house circles, but not so much in Hollywood, which is good. Not that I have anything against Hollywood actors (well, not most of them anyway) but having a Hollywood cast would have diminished the impact of the film.
Violence: Intense. Like I said, the violence in this movie is 100% contextual with the story. It comes in patches here and there, mostly in the beginning, but when it does come, it is intense and gory.
Nudity: Brief. There is one scene. When One-eye meets the group of Christian Vikings, they are holding a group of women captive, and they are naked. They are seated, so you’re not going to see much, but like I said, the context to the story is what in important. Anything more would have taken away from the piece.
Ambiance/Music: Excellent. I wish I could have see this one in the theaters. The Scandinavian setting was bleak and grey, the fog was completely claustrophobic, and the primitive land was beautiful and rich with color. The music is minimalist and sparse throughout the film, which is perfect.
Overall Rating: 4.8/5.0
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