OK, so what we have here is "Valhalla Rising", a pretty, yet pretty vapid film by the same director of the superior "Bronson". The short version: men in damp clothes, nicely shot, frolic on moors and up and down hills, looking grim and dirty and saying little. People die. The end.
The longer version is marginally more interesting. Take two parts "Aguirre: The Wrath of God", one part Jarmusch's "Dead Man", and toss in a little moor-climbing, misty fun a la Rob Roy or Braveheart, and you have this odd, bloody-knuckled little... thing.
The grim faced Mads Mikkelsen is here to give you One-Eye, who has exactly zero lines in the film and hauls around a Blonde, cold looking boy who cryptically "interprets" for him as the cold-blue camera shows off lots of close ups of Mads. We get One-Eye's face framed against clouds, One Eye's face framed against craggy hills and moors, One-Eye's face - WOAH EVERYTHING TURNED RED FOR A MINUTE! - etc. It's all very arty and slow paced.
The story, such as it is, is broken up for no discernible reason into 6 chapters, "Wrath", "Hell", etc. Mads, I mean One-Eye, fights his way out of initial captivity and takes Blonde Boy (Maarten Stevenson) with him on his journey into the Heart of Darkness, in this case played by Highlands of Scotland. Our maimed Hero bounces off of a group of surly, Jerusalem-bound Christians, gets into a misty boat, climbs more hills. People die one by one, the bearded leader (most men are bearded in this film) goes a little nutso raving about building a "New Jerusalem" while the camera goes in for more close-ups of Mad's brooding, scarred face. It's all very arty, like the time your older brother bought a video camera and took it on the family vacation to Yellowstone while you screeched in the back of the station wagon and punched him in the arm.
The reason Bronson worked (warts and all) and this doesn't is largely because Valhalla Rising eschews The Basics like compelling characters and narrative structure in favor of hand-held camera work following Men In Woods and lots of brooding, icy close ups of Norsemen. It's a bad trade off, folks.
To say that there are flaws with Valhalla Rising is being generous. Technically, it's low budget yet solid: the music is sparse and grinding-minimal, the shots are often framed quite beautifully, the action (as in Bronson) is rough-and-tumble and brutal. Unfortunately, we really don't know what is going on, nor is it very easy to care. I assume the director was going for a "dream-like" film that you feel, rather than understand. This sort of thing is sadly out of Nicolas Winding Refn's reach, at least for now, so what we get is a nicely shot, confusing and over long (at only 93 minutes!) tale of men marching through woods in slow-mo.
Recommended with numerous reservations for those who like this sort of thing. Personally, I'd just go back to Dead Man and call it a black & white night.
The longer version is marginally more interesting. Take two parts "Aguirre: The Wrath of God", one part Jarmusch's "Dead Man", and toss in a little moor-climbing, misty fun a la Rob Roy or Braveheart, and you have this odd, bloody-knuckled little... thing.
The grim faced Mads Mikkelsen is here to give you One-Eye, who has exactly zero lines in the film and hauls around a Blonde, cold looking boy who cryptically "interprets" for him as the cold-blue camera shows off lots of close ups of Mads. We get One-Eye's face framed against clouds, One Eye's face framed against craggy hills and moors, One-Eye's face - WOAH EVERYTHING TURNED RED FOR A MINUTE! - etc. It's all very arty and slow paced.
The story, such as it is, is broken up for no discernible reason into 6 chapters, "Wrath", "Hell", etc. Mads, I mean One-Eye, fights his way out of initial captivity and takes Blonde Boy (Maarten Stevenson) with him on his journey into the Heart of Darkness, in this case played by Highlands of Scotland. Our maimed Hero bounces off of a group of surly, Jerusalem-bound Christians, gets into a misty boat, climbs more hills. People die one by one, the bearded leader (most men are bearded in this film) goes a little nutso raving about building a "New Jerusalem" while the camera goes in for more close-ups of Mad's brooding, scarred face. It's all very arty, like the time your older brother bought a video camera and took it on the family vacation to Yellowstone while you screeched in the back of the station wagon and punched him in the arm.
The reason Bronson worked (warts and all) and this doesn't is largely because Valhalla Rising eschews The Basics like compelling characters and narrative structure in favor of hand-held camera work following Men In Woods and lots of brooding, icy close ups of Norsemen. It's a bad trade off, folks.
To say that there are flaws with Valhalla Rising is being generous. Technically, it's low budget yet solid: the music is sparse and grinding-minimal, the shots are often framed quite beautifully, the action (as in Bronson) is rough-and-tumble and brutal. Unfortunately, we really don't know what is going on, nor is it very easy to care. I assume the director was going for a "dream-like" film that you feel, rather than understand. This sort of thing is sadly out of Nicolas Winding Refn's reach, at least for now, so what we get is a nicely shot, confusing and over long (at only 93 minutes!) tale of men marching through woods in slow-mo.
Recommended with numerous reservations for those who like this sort of thing. Personally, I'd just go back to Dead Man and call it a black & white night.
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