The Northman (2022) - The second “I am vengeance” of 2022 for the history books
Credit: allocine.fr
No doubt Robert Eggers is sick of having each of his new releases compared to his previous works, his haunting debut The Witch, starring the then newcomer Anya Taylor-Joy as the daughter of a Puritan couple who encounters the forces of evil in the woods next to her home, closely followed by the hallucinogenic The Lighthouse, about two men (Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe) who succumb to madness on a secluded island. But then again, with such strong storytelling and the foundations of a new, twisted genre all to himself, how could they not be?
The Northman is the third and latest addition to Eggers’ rapidly growing repertoire. Based on the mediaeval Scandinavian legend Amleth, which in turn inspired William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, it follows the aforementioned Amleth (Oscar Novak, then a growling, vein-bursting Alexander Skarsgård) who vows to avenge his father, King Aurvandill (Ethan Hawke), after witnessing his uncle Fjolnir (Claes Bang) brutally murder him and savagely claim both the throne and his mother (Nicole Kidman) as his own. In the first instance, Amleth is found by Vikings and grows into a berserker. After an attack on a village, he encounters a Seeress (Björk in a very “Eggers” apparition) who tells him that in turn, Fjölnir was overpowered by another and now lives in exile in Iceland. Determined to fulfil his ongoing mantra, “I will avenge you father, I will save you mother, I will kill you Fjölnir”, Amleth disguises himself as a slave and sneaks on a ship headed there.
At a first glance, there’s lots to like about this angry, pulsating saga of vengeance: Eggers’ attention to location, costume and atmosphere is, as usual, perfectly on point, setting fur-cladded, beautiful actors against gorgeous Irish backdrops or underground, flame-lit caverns where Willem Dafoe looms, wild-eyed and growling. An opening scene in which young Amleth and his father shed their clothes and howl into a fire like wolves is typical Eggers, grotesquely portraying the real self as something mad, hideously animal and uncontrolled. From there, The Northman loses all attempts at a philosophy, transforming - much like Amleth goes from a spindly bowl-cut to Skarsgård in his muscular glory - from an intricate study of power to a tired and undistinguished blockbuster that has lost sight of its path.
Credit: allocine.fr
In no way is there anything inherently ‘bad’ about The Northman: it is beautifully crafted visually, and Skarsgård and crew never falter, all as regal as one another despite the strange accent adopted throughout. Nevertheless, there is something severely amiss. What is the purpose of The Northman, one cannot help but ask. Where is it going, and what is the point? The notion of revenge has been studied and scrutinised before, most recently in Matt Reeves’ The Batman (interestingly, Oscar Novak also portrays a young Bruce Wayne), where Robert Pattinson’s vigilante realises that he must ignite hope rather than exact revenge. Here as well, he spouts “I am vengeance” from the shadows, and yet both Batman and Northman are as uncertain and as slow to make a move as the prince of revenge himself, the original Hamlet, who turns over the possibility of killing Claudius for three acts before making a move. But while the point of Hamlet is exactly this, that he is British literature’s most chronic overthinker, Eggers does not go to the trouble of delineating Amleth’s mentality besides “vengeance”. His mantra becomes animalistic to the point of being nonsensical, as he is more and more blinded by his rage, but there is nothing new in this rendition, plodding through a series of scenes in which Skarsgard struggles his way through life as a slave, whispering to Olga (Anya Taylor-Joy), another slave, that “tonight, we attack” roughly every night.
The danger of this “so what?’ feeling, then, is that whenever something distinguishes itself from the plod, it is met with nothing but vague interest or astonishment. No doubt the violence of the film is something that cannot be ignored, for instance. Families are pushed into a house, which is then promptly set on fire, for no reason besides savagery. Amleth slams his head down onto an opponent’s until he is knocked out or dead (either way, no one cares). It isn’t gratuitous - Eggers’ attention to historic detail and accuracy makes sure of this. But it is strangely meaningless and numbed. No doubt Nicole Kidman also provides an excellent performance in all of her Nordic iciness, but it is tainted by the lagging of The Northman, in which characters are described by nothing but a word (“vengeance”, “cunning”) and proceed to vaguely, if at all, encapsulate this personality trait. In the end, The Northman is both blockbuster and fever dream, but dips into both so much so that it doesn’t know which it truly is, barging into Eggers’ nightmarish world with rage, pulsing veins and bared teeth with nothing really new to say.