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#467 - Valhalla Rising
Nicolas Winding Refn, 2009
In medieval Scandinavia, a mute warrior escapes from captivity and joins a group of Crusaders on their voyage to the Holy Land.
From what I can tell about the Refn films I've seen, his output is most definitely not for the impatient viewer (with the possible exception of Bronson, which at least has the extremely magnetic lead character to carry its scenes). Despite its rather brief running time (it barely passes the 90-minute mark), Valhalla Rising will make you feel every second of each minute as you watch its admittedly rather basic narrative play out. The film is broken into six chapters of approximately equal length that chart the journey of "One Eye" (Mads Mikkelsen), who starts off the film as the prisoner of a group of clansmen who pit him against other fighters for sport. Eventually (and I do mean eventually), he breaks free and kills off the men who imprisoned him - save for their leader's young son, who proceeds to follow him because he has nowhere else to go. The pair then run into a group of Christian soldiers who intend to go to Jerusalem in order to fight in the Crusades.
It's at this point that the film does gain a bit of structure, even if it does seem to be channeling Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God (especially since one of the chapters takes place entirely on a seemingly interminable boat ride). Refn's slow and purposeful approach to narrative means that it is going to be very easy to be bored by this film as it indulges frequent overcranking and shots where nothing much of interest happens at all. Mikkelsen's protagonist never speaks nor does he do too much acting through his body language, but the dialogue still tends to be sparse and focused on themes such as violence and morality (reflecting the changes to Scandinavian culture as Christian missionaries seek to convert Norse heathens by any means necessary, including violence and slavery). The colour palette is surprisingly neutral and low-contrast for a Refn film save for the occasional flash-forward or artistic shot that features high-contrast shades of red. The camerawork is smooth and gliding or notably static no matter what highly frenetic and graphic acts of violence may be occurring. The background score tends to consist of frequent drone tracks that range from low rumbles of dread to high-pitched shrieks, which seems appropriate as the soldiers gradually succumb to the various obstacles that are placed in their road, whether by God or the Devil or both or nobody.
Valhalla Rising might be the slowest film by a director who has build a reputation on making slow films, but at the very least it's not the most boring or reprehensible film he's made. Though its plot can easily be summed up as Aguirre with Crusaders in place of conquistadors, Refn adds in enough of his own style to make it a distinctive work for better or worse. Despite giving it a relatively positive rating, I still feel hesitant to recommend it to just anyone. Not only is it slow enough to feel twice as long as it actually is, but it's a gloomy and miserable piece of work that doesn't hesitate to show its characters of questionable sympathy being ground down by the film's events and by each other. The phrase "endurance test" is often used in derision towards a film with difficult pacing and content, but I think that it not only applies to Valhalla Rising but is also a pretty apt description of just what kind of film you're getting into.
Nicolas Winding Refn, 2009
In medieval Scandinavia, a mute warrior escapes from captivity and joins a group of Crusaders on their voyage to the Holy Land.
From what I can tell about the Refn films I've seen, his output is most definitely not for the impatient viewer (with the possible exception of Bronson, which at least has the extremely magnetic lead character to carry its scenes). Despite its rather brief running time (it barely passes the 90-minute mark), Valhalla Rising will make you feel every second of each minute as you watch its admittedly rather basic narrative play out. The film is broken into six chapters of approximately equal length that chart the journey of "One Eye" (Mads Mikkelsen), who starts off the film as the prisoner of a group of clansmen who pit him against other fighters for sport. Eventually (and I do mean eventually), he breaks free and kills off the men who imprisoned him - save for their leader's young son, who proceeds to follow him because he has nowhere else to go. The pair then run into a group of Christian soldiers who intend to go to Jerusalem in order to fight in the Crusades.
It's at this point that the film does gain a bit of structure, even if it does seem to be channeling Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God (especially since one of the chapters takes place entirely on a seemingly interminable boat ride). Refn's slow and purposeful approach to narrative means that it is going to be very easy to be bored by this film as it indulges frequent overcranking and shots where nothing much of interest happens at all. Mikkelsen's protagonist never speaks nor does he do too much acting through his body language, but the dialogue still tends to be sparse and focused on themes such as violence and morality (reflecting the changes to Scandinavian culture as Christian missionaries seek to convert Norse heathens by any means necessary, including violence and slavery). The colour palette is surprisingly neutral and low-contrast for a Refn film save for the occasional flash-forward or artistic shot that features high-contrast shades of red. The camerawork is smooth and gliding or notably static no matter what highly frenetic and graphic acts of violence may be occurring. The background score tends to consist of frequent drone tracks that range from low rumbles of dread to high-pitched shrieks, which seems appropriate as the soldiers gradually succumb to the various obstacles that are placed in their road, whether by God or the Devil or both or nobody.
Valhalla Rising might be the slowest film by a director who has build a reputation on making slow films, but at the very least it's not the most boring or reprehensible film he's made. Though its plot can easily be summed up as Aguirre with Crusaders in place of conquistadors, Refn adds in enough of his own style to make it a distinctive work for better or worse. Despite giving it a relatively positive rating, I still feel hesitant to recommend it to just anyone. Not only is it slow enough to feel twice as long as it actually is, but it's a gloomy and miserable piece of work that doesn't hesitate to show its characters of questionable sympathy being ground down by the film's events and by each other. The phrase "endurance test" is often used in derision towards a film with difficult pacing and content, but I think that it not only applies to Valhalla Rising but is also a pretty apt description of just what kind of film you're getting into.