You never would accuse Robert Eggers of being just another filmmaker.
He made the world take notice with his 2015 feature debut, the period horror film “The Witch,” which he followed up in 2019 with the psychological ordeal that was “The Lighthouse.”
Now comes his Viking movie.
In his director’s statement for “The Northman” — a largely stunning, often-offbeat movie that lands in U.S. theaters this week — Eggers talks of wanting to make “THE Viking movie. The definitive Viking movie.”
It’s quite a turnaround for him. To hear Eggers tell it, he wasn’t exactly spurred to action by his wife, who was convinced that if he made an effort, he, like she, would become interested in Icelandic sagas and Viking lore. Apparently, he was more or less “meh” about it. However, that changed after the pair visited Iceland in 2015, where he found himself imagining “solitary 10th-century figures on horseback” against the region’s almost unbelievable landscapes.
This newfound passion eventually led him to Alexander Skarsgard, the one-time “True Blood” actor who for years had been working to star in and produce a Viking movie.
Skarsgard turns in an impressive performance in a movie that is both beautiful and brutal. Its opening moments, in which thunder crashes around a mountain and a man with a gravelly voice addresses the Norse god Odin, are guttural and forceful and prove to be a microcosm of “The Northman.”
Based on the legend of Amleth, “The Northman” shares some major story beats with Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”
While Skarsgard portrays Prince Amleth as a man, it begins around 900 A.D. with a younger version played by Oscar Novak, who also was seen recently as young Bruce Wayne in “The Batman.” Amleth is excited for the return of his father, King Aurvandil (Ethan Hawke), to him and his mother, Queen Gudrun (Nicole Kidman), in the fictitious island kingdom of Hrafnsey, located somewhere around the Orkney and Shetland islands, near the top of present-day Great Britain.
Fearing he may not have much time left on this earth, Aurvandil concludes he must prepare Amleth for what lies ahead of him — including a duty to avenge his father’s future death. And thus we get a wild ritual shared by the two and orchestrated by the court jester and valued adviser to the king, Heimir the Fool (Willem Dafoe, one of Eggers’ “Lighthouse” stars), serving here as a shaman-like figure.
Soon, Aurvandil is killed, not by opposing forces but by his brother, Fjolnir (Claes Bang), who takes Hrafnsey — and Gudrun — for himself. He also orders his men to kill Amleth, but the boy is able to flee the area.
When we catch up with Amleth 20 years later, he is raiding Slavic villages with other Viking berserkers. At one brutality-laden stop, he encounters a seeress (Bjork), who reminds him of his fate and responsibility for vengeance. (Bjork — the brilliant Icelandic singer-songwriter, who hasn’t been seen on screen since 2005’s “Drawing Restraint 9,” is so musically enchanting with the delivery of her spoken words that you may not fully absorb them.)
Having learned his uncle has lost the kingdom to a greater force and now runs a farm in Iceland, Amleth disguises himself as a slave and boards a ship bound for the area. A real slave, Olga of the Birch Forest (“The Witch” star Anya Taylor-Joy), knows he is an imposter but stays quiet, the two forming a bond that will remain strong long after they arrive at the farm.
There, Amleth proves himself to be more capable than most slaves, impressing Fjolnir and Gudrun and gaining him certain privileges and responsibilities in the process. All the while, he schemes to avenge his father and rescue his mother and is willing to unleash a hellish new reality onto his unsuspecting uncle.
Eggers co-wrote “The Northman” with Icelandic poet, novelist, lyricist and screenwriter Sjon (“Lamb”), and they have crafted a story that, while relatively simple and familiar, is rich with detail. They have infused it with supernatural touches that, Eggers says, would be seen as realistic to the characters. (Well, maybe, but we won’t quibble.)
And many of its details come to glorious life thanks largely to director of photography Jarin Blaschke, who also worked on Eggers’ other features. Iceland, especially, looks incredible and dramatic — and not quite in the same way a 4K video of the country you may pull up on YouTube to show off your television does — but it’s the movie’s elaborate tracking shots that are most impressive. The aforementioned raid of Olga’s village clearly took high-level preparation, coordination and execution, and it’s captured magnificently.
In front of the camera, Skarsgard — who clearly put on muscle mass for the role and appears to have been in god-like shape — is a force. The singularly focused Amleth isn’t the most dynamic of characters, but the actor keeps you reasonably invested in his plight.
Kidman’s role is rather small — albeit greater than other high-profile players Hawke and Dafoe — but when the “Big Little Lies” co-stars finally share the screen again, deep into the film, we get some impactful minutes.
Bang, a Danish who played key parts in two 2020 arthouse films about art, “The Burnt Orange Heresy” and “The Last Vermeer,” is, well, rather artful in his portrayal of Fjolnir. That the character isn’t your typical villain also is a credit to Eggers and Sjon.
One of the disappointments of “The Northman” is that the scribes didn’t make Taylor-Joy’s role meatier. The talented star of “Emma” and “The Queen’s Gambit” makes the most of some key scenes, but the film simply would have been stronger with more of her.
Some may also be let down by the movie’s pacing; it has what could be considered an odd rhythm, and for all its action, it can be slow at times.
That said, “The Northman” is more accessible than “The Lighthouse” — and maybe “The Witch,” as well — and the hope here is it earns a wide audience.
———
‘THE NORTHMAN’
3.5 stars (out of 4)
MPAA rating: R *for strong bloody violence, some sexual content and nudity)
Running time: 2:16
How to watch: In theaters Friday
———
