Summary
To be or not to be? The legend of Amleth is writ large in all of its gory glory as Robert Eggers bathes history in bloody vengeance.
It’s been less than a decade since Robert Eggers landed on the scene with The Witch (2015). Yet in that short time he has consolidated his reputation, dropping the staggeringly esoteric The Lighthouse (2019) as proof of his ability to seamlessly blend horror and fantasy. So, when a deep narrative voice hails Odin at the start of his latest venture, you already know that it heralds the arrival of his grandest scale to date.
In 895, King Aurvandill War-Raven (Ethan Hawke) returns from war to his kingdom on the Irish Coast. He is greeted by his wife Queen Gudrún (Nicole Kidman), and his son and heir, Prince Amleth (played as a child by Oscar Novak). Yet Aurvandill is betrayed by his brother Fjölnir (Claes Bang) and killed, while Amleth escapes into the wilderness.
Years later, Amleth (now a very buff Alexander Skarsgård) has led an anonymous life with the Vikings, who have raised him to be a berserker. When fighting in the land of the Rus, he receives a vision (from Björk no less!) that tells him vengeance can soon be his. Opportunity arises when he learns that Fjölnir has been overthrown and is now residing in exile in Iceland. Amleth sneaks aboard a slave ship and bides his time, working with Olga (Anya Taylor-Joy), a Rus woman who claims to be a sorceress.
THE NORTHMAN follows in the grand fantasy of John Boorman’s Excalibur (1981) and more recently David Lowery’s The Green Knight (2021) in fuelling its fantasy with equal doses of sex, mysticism and relentless violence. Steeped in blood magic and ritual, there are times when the men in animal skins and actual beasts are indiscernible. Starting with a key hallucinogenic scene early in the picture, one that features an all-too-brief appearance of a bearded Willem Dafoe, regular cutaways to masterfully rendered visions of Valhalla may have you believing in the Old Gods once again.
Backed by Robin Carolan and Sebastian Gainsborough’s pounding score, and Jarin Blaschke’s gorgeous photography of Ireland (standing in for Iceland), it’s a wholly transportative experience. Yet it’s also a savage one, constantly soaked in sweat and blood and making us tacitly complicit in the visceral spectacle. There’s one sequence in Rus, for example, that’s ostensibly a continuous shot of Amleth ripping his way through a village, and part of my brain was already cranking up Led Zeppelin. Later, when the “time of wrath-kindled revenge” begins, and twisted bodies turn up in the village, we’re tacitly encouraged to root for more bloody reprisals.
Which is where Eggers gets a little mired. Amleth bides his time to strike, drawing out the final act into a series of hit-and-run skirmishes that slowly build to the final confrontation by a fiery volcano. If it all feels a bit like The Lion King, it’s because the legend of Amleth is the same one that inspired Hamlet. Much like Shakespeare, the usually powerful figures of Taylor-Joy and Kidman are mostly confined to serve at the whims of men, even if Olga deftly avoids Ophelia’s fate. There’s even a few dashes of Oedipus for good measure. (Let’s not even get into the issues with the 56-year-old Kidman playing the mother of the 45-year-old Skarsgård, only two years after playing his wife on Big Little Lies). Fatal indecision translates into repetition, even if it is a handsome wheel to be tethered to.
From Eric Northman to THE NORTHMAN, Skarsgård embodies every inch of ancient Scandinavian aggression. With few words, he is the driving force behind this tale of slow revenge. As Eggers channels his singular vision into a $90 million budget, you may find the easiest path is to simply go with the flow. After all, it’s a world where you’re either a slave or the aggressor, so maybe it’s best to just submit to the endless violent delights with violence ends.
2022 | USA, China, Japan | DIRECTOR: Robert Eggers | WRITERS: Sjón, Robert Eggers | CAST: Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Claes Bang, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ethan Hawke, Björk, Willem Dafoe | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal (AUS), Focus Features (US) | RUNNING TIME: 137 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 21 April 2022 (AUS), 22 April 2022 (USA)
