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This Friday "The Northman", an epic by Robert Eggers set in 9th-century Scandinavia, opens in US theaters. The story is based on the legend of Amleth, which in turn inspired William Shakespeare to write Hamlet.
"The Northman" stars Alexander Skarsgård and plays Prince Amleth, a Viking warrior prince who in the year 895 receives a large number of responsibilities regarding his kingdom, after his father, King Aurvandill (played by Ethan Hawke), is Wounded in battle, he returns home with Queen Gudrún (Nicole Kidman), young prince Amleth, and brother-to-be-king Fjölnir (Claes Bang).
Then the king takes his son on a vision quest to prepare him to take the throne, and with his death imminent, the court becomes the center of a series of intrigues seeking to strip him of power. This struggle unleashes a bloody fight where he also has to take care of his life.
Following the theatrical run, the film will be available on streaming platforms including Amazon Prime, iTunes, YouTube, Google Play, and more. But it doesn't have an estimated VOD release date yet, as it's a Focus Features/Universal produced movie, and previous Universal movies like "Wolf" and "Licorice Pizza" hit VOD about a month after they premiered on VOD. the cinemas.
The film is not expected to reach platforms such as HBO Max, because it is not a Warner Bros. production and, in addition, this option usually releases its productions simultaneously in cinema and on VOD.
Nor is it expected to be broadcast on Netflix, at least in the next four years. Because it has a deal with Universal that allows access to live-action movies from Universal Filmed Entertainment Group, but four years after their theatrical release.
Robert Eggers' third film is halfway between 'Conan the Barbarian', 'Excalibur' and 'The Green Knight', or, as the director himself has explained better, "me trying to make 'Conan the Barbarian' by means of of 'Andrei Rublev'". Let no one be scared, Tarkovsky's imprint is reflected only in his dark photograph, in 'El hombre del norte' it is more of a brutal reflection on violence and revenge in his time, and not an existential reflection on slow images.
Co-written with Icelandic author Sjón ('Dancer in the Dark'), 'The Northman' is bloody, murky, mind-boggling and riveting. It's also a visual wonder about how violence begets more violence, and how revenge isn't as satisfying as one thought. Of course, you don't look at violence with the eyes of the 21st century but with the eyes of a Berserker who firmly believes that if he dies in combat a Valkyrie will immediately transport him to Valhalla.
We see the film through the eyes of Amleth, as convinced of the existence of the supernatural as that his fate is sealed in advance. That's the strength he has, besides his portentous muscles, he is just a weapon of destiny, something as real in his head as the rain that falls on his heads. Despite being based on the same character that inspired Shakespeare to make 'Hamlet,' Eggers' character is less interested in being or not being than in lopping off heads.
There may never have been a Viking movie as focused on authenticity as this one, in Eggers' epic violence has its own rhythm, a brutal suffocating one that is felt in the gallop of horses, the clash of swords or arrows that dig into the muscles. His world is a harsh and desolate place where weakness is punishable by death and there is no room for mercy, either you kill or they kill you, one day you are a king and the other a slave. The brutality of the environment is answered by Amieth's thirst for revenge.
The story is as old as life itself, a young prince sees how his beloved father is killed by his brother who also makes the deceased's wife his own. The boy swears revenge and dedicates his life to it. When we see him again, he is a mass of merciless muscles, who leads a band of bloodthirsty warriors who devastate entire towns, rape and burn alive the least useful and send the rest as slaves.
The world around them is as inhospitable as they are, it's what unites it with the other two Eggers movies, 'The Witch' and 'The Lighthouse', but the scale of 'The Northman' is much bigger, it's a most irregular film but also the most ambitious and shocking, yes, the three films take place in natural environments that rebel against their human occupants.
The actors are very good, led by an Alexander Skarsgård with so many muscles that he seems to be hunchbacked by them, Anya Taylor-Joy, who repeats with Eggers after 'The Witch', gives the film its calmest moments, giving a bit of humanity to the character of Skarsgård, although it is Nicole Kidman who steals the scenes every time she enters the action. Special mention also for a particularly brilliant Claes Bang.
It is not a perfect film but it is so strong, so much Wagnerian ardor if you prefer, in its most epic moments (like that final duel), that I think the successes far outweigh the failures. Eggers has delivered a film that is dirty and brutal but one that exudes a disturbing and murky beauty.
With just three films, Robert Eggers has become one of the most atypical and personal directors of contemporary cinema. His way of creating atmospheres, his connections with folk horror, his visual styling and the way in which through his characters we connect with the darkest part of the human soul make him a most atypical, enigmatic, radical creator. It is time to always take your own cosmogony a little further. In that sense, 'El hombre del norte' is his most ambitious film, not only in terms of budget, but also when it comes to maximizing the telluric and sensory experience above the story.
Eggers delves into the Viking universe embracing all of its mystical mythology and pitting it against the intrinsic brutality of the berserker warriors. This intersection is reflected on the screen through work that is as physical and visceral as it is hallucinogenic. For this reason, a good part of his scenes, planned almost on the verge of delirium through long shots of titanic complexity, seem focused on immersing the viewer in a hypnotic aesthetic experience in which epic goes hand in hand with madness. expressive It is dirty, brutal, bloody, but at the same time, it exudes an unearthly beauty.
'El hombre del norte' is a Shakespearean nightmare around the obsession in which rage is rampant, but also poetry, which is full of imaginative ideas, which has an unfathomable pictorial grandiloquence and powerful images to remember.
Director: Robert Eggers Cast: Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Anya Taylor-Joy, Willem Dafoe, Ethan Hawke Original title: The Northman Country: United States Year: 2022 Release date: 04-22-2022 Genre: Adventures Screenplay: Robert Eggers , Sjón Sigurdsson Duration: 136 min.
He has never hidden it, and in every corner of his sets, in every detail of his dazzling imagination, director Robert Eggers (USA, 1983) hints that his career began as the person in charge of the production design of more than a dozen of short films.
the devil did put us through the charismatic eyes of Anya Taylor-Joy in "The Witch" (2015), her debut feature and a slow-cooked film, in which the gloomy atmosphere seemed to gradually take on the body of the film , as if the possession, in truth, were on the celluloid itself.
As he prepared to leave the dank islet where his movie sailors had just lost their heads, Eggers received a call from the imposing Alexander Skarsgård ("Tarzan").
"I want to make a Viking fantasy and I want you to direct it," he tells LA RAZÓN that the actor of Swedish origin told him. In that "I want", one of the various acting sons of Bill Skarsgård, also included the same producers who had given life to Aster's "Midsommar" and Universal, willing to invest the magic figure of 100 million dollars in the film.
"My idea for the tone of the film was to imply that the real world and the mythological world are actually the same. As if Odin and the undead were as real as you, as me, the trees or the little birds," explains the director.
And he continues: «And all that started from the documentation process. I realized that a lot of Viking history, or what we at least take for granted, is usually part of interpretations. Very thoughtful and studied, but assumptions after all.
The clearest example is the Valkyries, who, like the angels of Christian culture, have acquired different forms and structures depending on the time and the interpretation of their time.
'The Northman' arrives in theaters, the epic film by Robert Eggers ('The Witch', 'The Lighthouse'), who makes his most ambitious production to date with a budget of 90 million of dollars. A feature film set in the Viking Age that recounts the vendetta of a disinherited prince, played by Alexander Skarsgard. A film that, since it tells a story set in the 9th century, raises the question of whether it is based on real events.
The film has an original script written by Eggers and the Icelandic poet and novelist Sjón Sigurdsson. The plot, very briefly, narrates the revenge of the Nordic prince Amleth (Skarsgard), who wants to execute his uncle Fjölnir (Claes Bang), because he intrigued and killed his father, King Aurvandill (Ethan Hawke), to seize his throne, as well as marrying his mother, Queen Gudrún (Nicole Kidman).
Broadly speaking, it is more than evident that the first thing that comes to mind is 'Hamlet', one of William Shakespeare's most famous tragedies. Given that the protagonist of the work was a Danish (that is, Scandinavian) prince, it is logical that this proposal be seen as a Viking version of the Shakespearean classic, the source, by the way, of such emblematic titles as Disney's 'The Lion King'.
However, Eggers' story, while closely resembling 'Hamlet', delves deep into Viking culture and lore. And that is where Eggers is right, because the film goes to the root of Shakespeare's work, inspired precisely by the popular deed of Amleth, an essential figure of Scandinavian medieval legend and whose tragic epic, on a literary level, is compared to the French the Chanson de Roland or with the Spanish Cantar de mio Cid.
The legend of Amleth, although it was of oral tradition, was collected in 1200 in 'Vita Amlethi', by the Danish medieval historian Saxo Grammaticus, who is credited with the 16 libreos of the history of Denmark, the Gesta Danorum. Grammaticus' version tells that Gervendill, chief of the Jutes, was succeeded by his sons Horvendill and Feng. The first managed to seize the throne of Norway after sea to his king, Koll, and marry Gerutha, daughter of the king of Selandia, with whom he had his son Amleth.
"I will avenge you, father. I will save you, mother. I will kill you, Fjölnir. This mantra resonates in the trailer for The Northman (which will be released in Spain as The Northman), recited by its protagonist, an Alexander Skarsgård even more energetic than as an abuser in Big Little Lies or a cold-blooded soldier in Generation Kill.
The expectation before this release can be perceived as the penultimate attempt to revitalize the film industry and make the big screen something more than an extravagant hobby, which seems like a titanic task.
But at least among those of us who idolize filmmaker Robert Eggers, after leaving us speechless with The Witch and The Lighthouse, there is a desire to see what he has done with ninety million dollars.
It's also exciting to witness Björk's return to acting apparently in the form of a cameo, albeit a significant one twenty-two years after Dancers in the Dark (almost literally, because of Lars von Trier's bullying).
Although if something makes us think that this film comes at the right time, it is the current fascination with the Vikings: what does this Nordic civilization have that gathers so many followers today?.
When for a few months during the 2001-2002 academic year I lived on a meager Erasmus scholarship in the Danish city of Roskilde (I'm from Seville. I took the change of scenery seriously), famous for its rock festival, its Gothic cathedral and its museum of Viking ships, little did I know that in the following decade it could have been the envy of an entire subculture.
If in the 50s it was science fiction, in the 60s spy stories and in the 70s martial arts, the years after 2010 have seen an explosion -also in the literal sense that gives rise to the term exploitation- the interest of cinema and television for those Scandinavian peoples that flourished between the 8th and 11th centuries.
Especially because of the History Channel and its series Vikings, by Michael Hirst, which after six successful seasons has had a sequel this year with Vikings: Valhalla. But they have not been the only recent incursions at this time.
just take a look at IMDB to be scared by the profusion of titles on the subject, produced mostly in northern European countries. None with the budget or the formal ambitions of El hombre del norte, yes.
Since we are talking about history, perhaps it is worth asking what image of the Vikings these fictions give us and how much they adjust to reality.
Luckily, someone with much more knowledge and criteria than a server has already raised it. The bioarchaeologist specializing in the Viking Age Cat Jarman, whose essay The Kings of the River (Attic of Books) has just been published in our country, comes to tell us that these were not as they are painted, or at least not entirely.
They left a trail of death and destruction with their expansion across the continent, true, but they also dedicated themselves to more constructive issues such as generating commercial networks and coexistence with other cultures.
Some will say that the Romans also promoted advances that are not usually reflected in historical fiction (she already knows: “what have the Romans done for us?”).
But, in the Viking case, their bloodthirsty side seems to be judged more than in any other town of the time, which Jarman attributes to a distortion on the part of the Anglo-Saxon medieval sources - that is, rivals - or the old Icelandic sagas.
To make matters worse, this "romanticized" vision of the Vikings has touched the hearts of white supremacists and friends of the extreme right.
How not to remember Jake Angeli, the infamous cuckolded trumpist who, after assaulting the United States Congress, was baptized in more than one medium as "the Viking". Even the most fashionable villain, Vladimir Putin, has used and manipulated Kievan Rus, a federation of Slavic tribes formed by the Varangians-Vikings from the north, as a nationalist argument.
The director of The Northman himself has admitted in statements to The Guardian that the stereotype of the very macho warrior and the appropriation of Viking culture by that rabble made him "a little allergic" to her. At least until she traveled to Iceland, she was blown away by her landscapes and then Björk herself introduced her to the poet Sjón, who was ultimately a great inspiration for this film and her co-writer
