The Northman - We Need More Movies Like This

one of the more interesting movies to come out of 2019 was the lighthouse a surreal psychological horror movie about a pair of lighthouse keepers slowly descending into madness and alcohol abuse when they're trapped together during a violent storm it's basically like every christmas in scotland ever in an endless sea of safe corporatized big budget homogenous sludge it was a breath of fresh air to watch a movie that dared to be weird abstract and thought-provoking so i was pretty excited when i found out that director robert eggers was going to be turning his attention to vikings with his next movie the northmen a historical epic about an exiled prince on a quest for revenge against the uncle who murdered his father and stole his kingdom i went into it expecting your typical hack and slash action adventure story lots of blood and gore and beards big epic battles and a final climactic showdown to decide the fate of a kingdom and well that's not exactly what this movie is you might say it subverted my expectations except it did it in a good way not the kind of way that makes me want to tear my own [ __ ] face off the northman tells the story of amleth a warrior prince whose father gets betrayed and brutally murdered by his uncle fjallner so that he can claim the kingdom and amless mother for his own amulet himself manages to escape the ambush and swears an oath of revenge against fjallner flash forward about 20 years and analysts now a big sweaty berserker with an epic beard going on a rampage across russia because you know what else are you gonna do it's here that he runs into a holy woman and has a mad spiritual vision reminding him of the oath that he took as a boy now he's a man and apparently it's his destiny to seek out fjallner recover an ancient sword that was lost long ago and lay a good old-fashioned smackdown on him wait some minute an exiled warrior prince gone on an epic quest to take revenge against the man who murdered his father and reclaim his birthright where have i seen this before seriously though this is the point where the film takes your expectations and gleefully does a big steaming viking [ __ ] all over them instead of ruling over his father's kingdom fjallner has now been exiled to iceland where he presides over a small village and a handful of soldiers and before you know it hamlets infiltrated the village posing as a captured slave where he begins a campaign of sabotage psychological warfare and brutal murder slowly eroding fjallner's power and stripping away everything the man values along the way he also hooks up with fellow slave olga who's pretty happy to help him out in more ways than one but is his quest as righteous as he believes is fjallner really the evil traitor that he remembers from 20 years earlier or a loving father manipulated into doing something he didn't want to is amleth bound to the fate that's been prescribed for him or can he escape from it to become something more and if he follows his quest for revenge all the way to its end will he be any better than the man he swore vengeance against these are the questions that lie at the core of the northmen story and as you gradually discover over the course of the film the answers are usually complex morally grey and extremely [ __ ] violent make no mistake this is a harsh unforgiving world inhabited by harsh unforgiving people death can come suddenly and violently and innocence and goodness offers no protection from its the movie also plays with the idea that our childhood understanding of people and events is often dangerously unreliable distorted and simplified by a lifetime of new experiences and personal biases and usually lacking the context needed for proper understanding amleth himself learned some pretty sobering truths about his mother and father that reframed past events from a whole different perspective i mean it's not a particularly complex plot and it's definitely not some epic saga of heroes and villains clashing with the fate of their kingdom hanging in the balance this is a gritty grounded story about personal grudges with morally complex people that you could choose to view as good or evil depending on your point of view but one thing it is is gripping and compelling i was never bored throughout the northmen partly because the streamlined story allows for greater focus on the characters in the world they live in and partly because of the remarkable direction and cinematography robert eggers brought a unique visual style to the lighthouse that reminded me of classic vintage movies from the 1950s combined with a [ __ ] ton of surreal dream sequences visions and hallucinations that were very much left up to the audience to interpret and he brings a lot of that same style to the north man it's not quite as abstract and weird this time around but there's plenty of moments where you're left to question whether what you're seeing is metaphorical or literal which is an already farty way of saying that the main character has a bunch of spiritual visions and the film never makes it entirely clear how much of it is real and how much of it is just in his heads either way the northman is visually brilliant to look at norse culture seems to be going through a bit of a renaissance right now with big budget tv shows video games and movies all trying to put their spin on this weird combination of complex spiritual mythology advanced culture and brutal gory warfare now i don't claim to be an expert on this stuff by any means but i spoke to andre from midnight's edge and he reckons the depiction of norse culture weapons rituals and language is pretty [ __ ] accurate and since he's basically a [ __ ] viking himself what you gonna do you're gonna argue with him i mean there's no strong black women commanding hordes of viking warriors which i'm sure must be pretty infuriating for some people today but what can you do that's historical accuracy for you on that subject you'll be pleased to know that there's absolutely no attempt to push the message with this movie there's no overpowered female warriors that can somehow hold their own against men twice their size and weight no ethnically diverse token characters awkwardly forced into historical situations where they never existed and no clumsy commentary on present-day social issues it's a movie that wants to do one thing tell a good [ __ ] story faithfully and accurately imagine that performances are excellent for the most part alexander skarsgard is perfect as amleth a big hulking warrior filled with rage and vengeance but struggling to look past that and find something more ethan hawk absolutely dominates every scene that he's in despite his modest screen time anya taylor joy looks weird but in a good way like you can totally believe this is a girl from some far-flung siberian tribe and i'm not entirely convinced that she isn't some kind of [ __ ] space alien in real life speaking of aliens inhabiting human bodies i love the fact that bjork's in this film nicole kidman's a bit of a weird choice though i mean damn she certainly swings for the fences with her performance at times but unlike most of the cast she doesn't really look like she belongs in this world the lack of makeup means that you can tell she's had a lot of work done recently and i don't know man there's times when her face just doesn't seem to be willing to move in the way she needs it to overall though the north man might not have been the film i was expecting but in a lot of ways it's the film i needed right now in a time when cinema is dominated by endless big budget low imagination superhero [ __ ] fests it's nice to see films that dare to be different creative unconventional and thought-provoking films like the northmen remind me that cinema can and should be an art form made by people with actual artistic visions instead of a [ __ ] conveyor belt producing forgettable formulaic content designed purely to make a return on investment it's a film that kept me gripped and intrigued and left me with a lot to think about once it was over and if you're in the mood for something a bit different and more challenging than the usual shite then well i recommend you give it a go anyway that's all i've got for today go away now

Channel: The Critical Drinker

Views: 1,207,333

Keywords:

Id: xkup1pHb09k

Length: 7min 29sec (449 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 29 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/didntevenwarmupdho]

I thought the movie was epic as fuck, but I doubt it’ll be a commercial success.

[u/ar295966]

I agree, but don’t count on it. This will end up losing $100mm + which means the studios will be done with movies like this for a while. Sucks but that’s the business.

[u/Zz22zz22]

WHERE WAS HIS FULL DONG. WE WERE PROMISED FULL DONG.

[u/IncidentalIncidence]

I used to really like this guy's videos, but these days he can't seem to go 5 minutes without going on a tangent about wokism and SJWs.

[u/MaineRage]

Most definitely we need more. Watch it if you haven’t.

[u/nathantcook]

I liked the Northman but god this YouTuber is insufferable

[u/UnicornMagic]

What the fuck does a random unhinged rant about social issues have to do with this movie? It was honestly really cringy and his comments on the female protagonist gives off massive incel vibes. This guy also sounds like he's breathless ranting through clenched teeth like he's barely holding it together, 0/10 this guy can fuck right off with his weird ass commentary.

[u/kazador3010]

Fuck this guy. Dogshit alt right YouTuber.

[u/ErshinHavok]

I liked it but it felt like 3 hours. And Nicole Kidman looks absolutely horrifying with all of her cosmetic surgery.