Northmen: Vikings in Scotland

Whatever place you name, chances are the Vikings made it there. They were quite the navigators, but not the renegade band led by the young warrior Asbjörn. Their ship has foundered on the rocks along the Scottish shore. Fortunately, they can still fight like berserkers, because they will have to in Claudio Fäh’s Northmen: a Viking Saga (trailer here), which opens this Friday in Los Angeles.

Asbjörn’s father was one of the final holdouts, who sacked and pillaged the old fashioned way, unlike the current crop of sell-out Vikings. After his death, Asbjörn has struggled to hold the last remnant together. Getting shipwrecked in Alba (a.k.a. Scotland) will not help his cause. The locals’ initial reception was quite hostile, but it provided them an opportunity to take a nobleman’s daughter hostage. Her ransom should be enough to buy their way into the Norse settlements towards the south. However, it turns out that was no lady, it is Princess Inghean, the Scottish king’s daughter.

Naturally, the king mobilizes his entire forces, but his sleazy mercenary commanders will lead the hunt and they have an incentive to prevent her arranged marriage—permanently. To stay alive long enough to make it to the Danish territories, Asbjörn will forge unlikely alliances with Inghean and Brother Conall, a Christian monk who can handle a staff in a manner that would make Friar Tuck proud.

Whenever Asbjörn’s men are fighting, the film is on pretty solid ground. Fortunately, that is pretty much always the case. Occasionally they stop to lick their wounds, but there is absolutely no hanky-panky going on. The upright Asbjörn sees to that.

While the South African landscape doubles for Scotland throughout Northmen, cinematographer Lorenzo Senatore’s big sweeping vistas make it look like Tolkienesque New Zealand. Technically, there are no fantasy elements in the film (notwithstanding their increasingly incredible exploits), but it certainly looks like a land beyond contemporary reason.

This is not exactly the sort of film that will generate a lot of acceptance speeches on the part of its cast. Nevertheless, Ryan Kwanten does some of his best work outside of the True Blood series as Conall. He kicks butt rather nicely, while brooding over his dark past. The film just clicks together better when he is on-screen. In contrast, Tom Hopper’s Asbjörn is a rather bland hero, coming across like Chris Hemsworth’s even more wooden brother. Although hardly the next Angela Mao, Charlie Murphy handles her action scenes well enough and shows a bit of fire as Inghean. Fortunately, a classically trained cat like Darrell D’Silva understands how to chew the scenery as the crusty old veteran Viking plunderer, Gunnar.

When it sticks when it sticks to hack-and-slash action, Northmen is a lot of fun. Indeed, it rarely gets more ambitious than that, but it is a wise film that recognizes its limitations and adjusts accordingly. Considerably more entertaining than the Norse-themed monster movie Ragnarok, Northmen: a Viking Saga is recommended for action fans when it opens tomorrow (7/31) in Los Angeles at the Arena Cinema.

Ragnarok: Summer Vacation in Finnmark

The Oseberg Viking ship was an extraordinary archaeological find. It remains one of the best preserved vessels, but it has not exactly boosted the reputation of Viking nautical engineering, considering two modern facsimiles have proved unseaworthy. Nevertheless, an absent-minded archaeologist is convinced the Oseberg ship ventured all the way up to Norway’s Finnmark region. He also believes they witnessed something that inspired the apocalyptic Norse myths, so naturally he drags his bratty kids along to investigate. They will definitely find something in Mikkel Brænne Sandemose’s Ragnarok (trailer here), which launches on VOD today.

The Viking Ship Museum display of the Oseberg craft is quite dramatic. Unfortunately, the widower-father Sigurd Svendsen has essentially talked himself out of a job there with all his crazy theories. However, when his reckless co-worker Allan discovers a corroborating artifact, Svendsen packs up his petulant daughter Ragnhild and devoted son Brage to spend their summer vacation scouring for more runes in exciting Finnmark.

Naturally, Ragnhild is not too thrilled about these plans, but the spectacular scenery briefly shuts her up. They quickly meet up with Elizabeth, Allan’s “cool chick” colleague, and their hard drinking guide Leif, who is clearly just itching to yell “throw me the idol and I’ll throw you the whip.” There are headed towards Odin’s Eye, an island in the middle of former Soviet border outpost, where viewers know Queen Åsa’s father met with a painful death centuries ago in the prologue. Could there be some truth to the legend of the Midgard serpent Jörmungandr? That might explain why there’s a snake on the poster.

Frankly, one of the best things about Ragnarok is the setting. The suspiciously deserted Soviet military base is pretty creepy and the Odin’s Eye isle is worthy of a Peter Jackson Tolkien movie. Unfortunately, the creature effects are completely lacking the awe factor. Worse still is all the Svendsen family drama we have to sit through.

Apparently, Pål Sverre Hagen is Norway’s go-to actor for adventurous academics, following-up his portrayal of Thor Heyerdahl in the Oscar nominated Kon-Tiki with his turn as Svendsen. He is appealing earnest as the naïve archaeologist and he develops some pleasantly flirtatious chemistry with Sofia Helin’s hip and sporty Elizabeth. However, the kids are like fingernails on a blackboard.

Given the success of Marvel’s Thor franchise and History Channel’s Vikings, it is not surprising Norse mythology is getting a look-see from more filmmakers. Sandemose certainly proves fjords are strikingly cinematic, but he never fully capitalizes on the Ragnarok mythos or the Oseberg backstory. Instead, he concentrates on emulating the most annoying parts of Jurassic Park. There are moments of promise in Ragnarok, but it never comes together, at least not for reasonably adult audiences. Nevertheless, it is now available for Norse mythology fans to try on VOD from Magnolia/Magnet. It also opens theatrically next Friday (8/22) in Santa Fe at the Jean Cocteau Cinema.

Norse Allegory: Valhalla Rising

Consider him the original cage fighter. It is around 1000 AD and the Christians are coming, but a band of Norsemen will enjoy their Pagan ways while they can. That includes forcing their slaves to fight to the death in Nicolas Winding Refn’s moody Viking film Valhalla Rising (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

Known only as “One Eye” (for obvious reasons) a hulking Norse killing machine lives shackled inside a crude cage far up in the isolated Highlands. He is only let out only to compete in death matches. It is said no man can own the mute One Eye longer than five years. Maybe there really is a curse attached to him, or perhaps it is just gives the lethal savage more time to figure how to kill his masters. Regardless, his current owner resolves to keep him past the five year mark. In retrospect, this was probably a mistake.

After a grisly escape abetted by Are, the young boy who brought One Eye his occasional gruel, the newly liberated slaves fall in with a band of Christians off the join the Crusades. However, when their boat sails into a preternatural mist, the already portentous film veers into some truly murky allegorical waters.

Despite the ample supply of severed heads, Valhalla is not really a hack-and-slash movie. It is more like a buffet of Pagan and Christian symbolism churned through a Jodorowsky film. Indeed, lest we forget how significant it all is, we are periodically reminded by Refn’s loaded chapter titles (“Men of God,” “Hell,” “The Sacrifice,” etc.). Yet, the film’s metaphysical implications are a bit obscure, despite Refn’s agonizingly deliberate pacing, often holding scenes so long they almost become frozen tableaux. Still, cinematographer Morton Søborg dramatically captures the harsh beauty of the mountainous landscape with striking vistas that suggest the ephemeral smallness of man, except for One Eye of course.

Even those who have found Mads Mikkelsen a bit of a cold fish in previous films (like Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky) will have to admit he is all kinds of awesome as One Eye. Beyond convincing, he burns up the screen with raw Nordic seething. Frankly, he is pretty darn scary here.

Valhalla is a strange film that seems destined to find an audience in midnight screenings. Its apocalyptic themes and medieval macho-ness make an unlikely cocktail, but there is no denying Valhalla is the work of a visionary director (albeit one with a heavy hand). He truly immerses viewers in One Eye’s brutish world, giving them a tactile sense of the cold, damp, Godless Highlands. (Why one would want to go there, is another question entirely.) It opens tomorrow (7/16) in New York at the IFC Center.