The Northman [DVD] [2022]

For me the film was good and watchable but the best part was definitely Claes Bang’s performance. I think without him the film would not quite have hit the mark.

This is a review of the July 2022 All Region Blu-ray from Universal. It comes with plenty of extras, and a superb quality version of this expensive American film, with broad-based North European credentials.

American director Robert Houston Eggers is emphatically a ‘Marmite’ director. Aged just 39, with a career in theatre direction and design, he has now directed three films. His second film, 2019’s ‘The Lighthouse’ was fted, exceptionally stylistic and stylized, but not universally acclaimed. Personally, I detested it. My review (10 Nov 2020) summarised it as technically brilliant, but clich-ridden and overblown. I suggested that Eggers tried to manipulate his audience, to shock.

Here, to a degree, Eggers follows the self-same track. But whilst in 2019, he had a budget of $11 million, and a cast of 2, here he had something well north of $70 million and a stellar cast including Nicole Kidman, Alexander Skarsgrd, Bjrk and Ethan Hawke ~ and Willem Defoe again. In 2019, Eggers and his co-writer picked the pocket of Edgar Allan Poe and a very good BBC film from 2016. Here, he and his co-writer mine the Viking legend of Amleth, originally documented by Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus, writing in about 1200, which was the source of Shakespeare’s peerless tragedy ‘Hamlet, Prince of Denmark’.

Apparently, Skarsgrd had wanted to make a Viking film for some years, and discussed collaboration with Eggers. The project got off the ground fast, was filmed on location in both Northern Ireland and the Republic, and in Iceland, and premiered in Stockholm in March 2022.

As with ‘The Lighthouse’, the film is a visual treat. The landscapes (and seascapes) used are fabulously wild and atmospheric. The feel for a world of the far away, in time and geography ~ it is set from AD895 ~ is powerful. The use of darkness, of fire, of lamplight, is exquisite. The main storyline is exciting, harrowing, and slightly familiar if you know your ‘Hamlet’. There is a great deal to enjoy. Some of the performances are really excellent.

However, I am sure you can sense the ‘But’! Because there are several. Principally, again, Eggers manages style over substance. The Telegraph’s Robbie Collins describes the film as ‘never knowingly undercooked’. Yes, quite!

Eggers gives many of his characters (notably Nicole Kidman) outrageous ‘Scandi’ accents. Why? Some are so broad as to be unintelligible. We know they were all talking various Norse languages and dialects, so leave well alone.

There are various religious and quasi-religious rituals shown, and magical dabblings, some of which look like Viking by way of Sioux or Arapaho. How authentic is this aspect? I have no idea, but much of it felt manipulative. So did some of the very liberal violence and widely strewn body parts.

There are some very derivative aspects too. Skarsgrd’s Amreth has been likened to Conan the Barbarian. I found him neither likeable nor sympathetic, and in the end, downright foolish.

My husband enjoyed ‘The Northman’ more than I did. Out of respect to him, I’ll award 4 Stars. I am not convinced.

The director Robert Eggers is masterful at creating authentic and unnerving atmospherics., The lighthouse and The Witch have a mesmerising and compelling magnetism. He creates mise-en-ecene which lends each story an intensely immersive quality which stays with you long after the telling. The Northman is a breathtakingly visceral portrait of a time of blood feuds, myths, existential crisis and tribal war.
According to multiple interview sources Eggers took his inspiration from Saxo Grammaticus’s ‘History of the Danes’ , an English translation of Beowolf and the Old Norse story of Amleth which may have been the inspiration for Shakespeare’s Hamlet…It is a tale of tragic revenge and the futility of blood feuds and the havoc they reap. The cinematography is wonderful, the ensemble cast permit the viewer to see into a medieval world of human sacrifice, death fixations, fear, supernatural power and the harshness ,brutality and unforgiving nature of life back then.
I think it is probably an accurate depiction of medieval life and settlements, the lighting alone deserves a mention, it’s raw and unfettered, the interior shots reminded me a little of Coppola’s Apocalypse Now especially the interior scenes with Colonel Kurtz, I found it gripping and Alexander Skarsgard’s performance was resonant with inner rage and torment. No Abercrombie & Fitch Vikings here! Skal!