The Northman (5/5 Stars)

 

If there ever was a movie that I hoped would make its money back and a whole lot more, it would be "The Northman". This is writer/director Robert Eggers' first medium sized budget movie. His previous movies, "The Witch" and "The Lighthouse" were small independent films. What made these movies special was the attention Robert Eggers paid to historical detail. In particular the dialogue stood out. "The Witch" took place in 17th Century Puritan New England. "The Lighthouse" took place on some non-descript 18th century British Isle. Robert Eggers not only took the time and study to unearth the way people back then would talk, but he also had enough faith in his audience to grasp all the temporally foreign words and phrases. The movies are insular and specific, they feel like you have been fully immersed in another place and time. This generally makes a good movie but almost never one that makes a lot of money. So when I heard that a studio had given Eggers a lot of movie with understanding that this would be an Eggers film, not the latest installment of a franchise, I knew that with would be a potential cinematic moment. And it is. "The Northman" is the most unique action blockbuster since "Mad Max: Fury Road". You haven't seen anything quite like it.

Or maybe you have a dozen times. There is plenty of originality in the movie: the culture and lore of Vikings is explored in depth in all its pre-Christian savagery and weirdness. but the plot should be instantly recognizable and for good reason. The story being adapted is the medieval Viking saga of Amleth, a prince whose father kings is murdered by his uncle who then marries his mother. Yes, this is the same saga that William Shakespeare adapted and modernized (in the year 1600) for his stage play Hamlet. It is well that the plot should be familiar because almost nothing else is likely to be recognizable. The Vikings were the white man's last gasp of tribal barbarity before Christianity fully covered the continent and made its inhabitants, in ideal if not in deed, a loving people. For those white people interested in the triumph of the will, it is fitting that they would look to the Vikings for inspiration. Their culture is not for the faint of heart. Having said that, I believe we can all understand the basic instinct for a prince to avenge the death of his father.

There is a level of energy about this movie that is on some level of badass. We get to witness a Vikign coming of age ritual wherein Young Amleth joins his father King Aurvandil War-Raven (Ethan Hawke, doing well) and the town shaman (Willem Dafoe) in some Viking version of a Native American sweat lodge. We get to witness the pre-battle fireside rituals of the berserkers in which they obtain their trancelike rage. We get to witness an actual Berserker raid in which unarmored Nordic men terrorize and butcher a hapless Rus village. We get to witness a Viking proto sport called Knattleikr (translates as "ball game") in which men with clubs try to hit a pole with a ball while also hitting each other until one is left standing. We get to watch a swordfight in a Volcano. This is exhilarating stuff, and amazingly, historically accurate.

 Amleth is played by Alexader Skarsgaard, a very tall and muscular Nordic actor. I got some real Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Barbarian vibes from him. The love interest of Amleth is Olga, a slave from the Rus village he attacked. She is a cunning survivor played by Anya Taylor-Joy. Eggers fans will remember her from The Witch. She has a face and presence that belongs in movies about the distant past. Other familiar faces show up: there is Willem Dafoe from The Lighthouse and Ralph Ineson and Kate Dickie is minor roles. An actor new to Eggers and exceptionally suited to his type of material is Nicole Kidman who plays Amleth's Queen Mother. There is a subtext in Hamlet that is hinted at in some adaptations. That subtext is brought out in full in The Northman in an exceptional scene that twists the story right round.

It is disheartening that "The Northman" had an underwhelming record at the box office. Hopefully the VOD marketplace will make up for it. I very much want artists like Robert Eggers to be successful, not just for their sake, but for other artists like them. It is hard to make movies about the distant past. If these movies are made at all, there seems to be this overwhelming urge to twist the motivations of the characters in some inauthentic way so that it will not offend modern sensibilities. Viking culture is not so different from other pre-Christian cultures. In particular, I believe it has much similarity with polynesian culture. Both peoples were seafaring (and thus exceptionally tall people), had warrior classes, and volcanoes. But imagine if you wanted to make a movie like "The Northman" about a non-white group of people. I'm not sure it would be allowed (Mel Gibson's Apocalypto is the exception that proves the rule). However, if artists like Robert Eggers made money, I don't see why there couldn't also be an artist who has an idea for a badass movie about the Maori. I would love to see that. Right now, all we have is Disney's Moana. 

The Green Knight (5/5 Stars)

 

“The Green Knight” is an adaptation of a medieval poem popularly known as “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” I read part of it in my high school English class and in anticipation of seeing this movie, reread the entirety of it. The poem’s origins are obscure, its language long forgotten. The version we have with us today comes from the skillful translation from that great professor of languages, J.R.R. Tolkein. The fact that something written in English in England would need to be translated grants the subject matter an ancient solemnity. After all, if this is the only thing that still survives from a time when the earth was understood through magic and religion, it feels like it should hold profound and time honored wisdom.

Mystical wonder and ancient solemnity is the mood and atmosphere that screenwriter and director David Lowery has set out to achieve here and I would argue, succeeds admirably at establishing. More than anything, “The Green Knight” is an achievement in mood and atmosphere. The colors are lush, the soundtrack evocative, the language profound and poetical. David Lowery has set out to tell a mysterious tale and succeeds perhaps too much. I doubt anyone will completely understand what is happening the first time around (what with the giants and spell sashes and talking foxes). I have seen the movie twice. The second time I saw it with subtitles which helped quite a bit. When the language has that Olde Worlde feel to it, it can be easy to miss words and phrases. Does the movie actually have a point? Yes, I believe it does. The original poem had a definite moral to it made explicit by a verbal explanation of it at the end. This movie inverts the ending and through the magic of movie montage expresses the same moral, but without an explicit explanation. Its actually an ingenious adaptation of the poem in that respect.

Sir Gawain is not a knight. He is called a “sir” because of his noble blood, being nephew to the great King Arthur, the legend that pulled sword from stone. Besides his title though, Gawain is a bit of a letdown. He spends his time in brothels and taverns and does not appear to have any particular ambition. When King Arthur, at a Christmas Party, asks Sir Gawain to tell a tale of himself so that he may know him better, Gawain thinks about it and then relates that he does not have a story to tell. Fortuitously (but perhaps not coincidentally) a tale presents itself at the Christmas Party. The Party is interrupted by an unearthly knight made of green bark. He asks for a challenger to his game. He will let whomever takes up his challenge to strike him if they promise to meet him at the Green Chapel one year hence so that the Green Knight may give back the blow. Gawain takes up this challenge and, rashly bowing to peer pressure, summarily strikes off the Green Knight’s head. Gawain perhaps thought that by beheading and thereby killing the Green Knight he would not have to make good on his end of the bargain. Not so, the Green Knight picks up his severed head, tells Gawain he will meet him in a year, and leaves. It is a great scene, both an effective and faithful adaptation of the same scene in the poem.

The rest of the movie concerns Gawain’s deliberations in whether he should go to the Green Chapel at all (he does not have to) and the quest itself whereupon many strange and dangerous happenings occur. What is the Green Knight? Well, the most apparent metaphor of the Green Knight is death. Less apparent, and equally important, the Green Knight symbolizes the inevitable reactions to a person’s actions (death being the ultimate reaction to a person’s life). By living up to his end of the bargain and facing the Green Knight on the terms he has already accepted, Gawain is taking responsibility for his actions. The word used in this movie for why Gawain does or does not take responsibility is “honor”. Honor, explains Gawain at one point in the movie (and perhaps still not understanding what he is saying), is the reasons why a knight does what he does. Under this interpretation, the movie can mean almost anything from keeping one’s promises, to being faithful to romantic partners, to man’s stewardship of the natural environment. All of this is tied into the concept of honor presented here as the simple act of showing up to face one’s fate without excuses, without spells, without flinching.

Sir Gawain is played by Dev Patel that ambassador of color-blind casting. Dev is British born but of entirely Indian heritage. Here he is in England at the time when only Anglos and Saxons were on the island. It is kind of illuminating as to how little of an issue this is. As I brought up before in the “Personal Life of David Copperfield” (which also stars Dev Patel as a distinctly not-Indian character) since the movie takes place in a time of homogeneous racial identity, the race of the particular actors matters less to how the characters interact with each other. Everyone has the same Olde World accent and none of the characters’ choices take race into account. Secondly, is the otherwordly cinematography of the movie. David Lowery leans into the natural in this movie and presents everything in a lush verdant tone. The greens are dark green. The sky at dusk has an orange hue. The movie’s locations do not quite look like England. Actually, they look sort of like India (a country known for Green and Orange, take a look at its flag) and the color palette of Dev’s skin fits in quite well with the color palette of the cinematography. Third, Dev Patel is a very good actor and performs the role admirably. He just has the right look while wearing chain mail, sporting a kingly beard, and wielding a longsword.

Filling out the cast is Sean Harris as King Arthur. He performs the role like Marlon Brandon in the Godfather, with no need to speak louder than a whisper to get all the people in the room to listen. From a very good movie called “The Witch” produced by A24 which also produced this movie, we have Kate Dickie as Queen Guinivere and Ralph Ineson as the Green Knight. These two actors look right at home in the ancient past. Performing dual roles is Alicia Vikander as Gawain’s romantic interest in his brothel travails as well as The Lady to Joel Edgerton’s The Lord. These two prompt Gawain with another game before his appointment at the Green Chapel. Finally there is Barry Keoghan, his sweatiness, who shows up to do something dastardly in the intervening chapters.

“The Green Knight” is a very good movie that has something to say, albeit in sometimes obscure and round about ways. Like reading an old book with strange language, it may take more than usual effort to glean all of its secrets, but like taking the time to understand Shakespeare, it is worth going to it rather than having it come to you in a more modern updated form. Sometimes the place to see something new is the long forgotten past.