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 Killing of a Sacred Deer (1/5 Stars)

Last year, I saw writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos’s film “The Lobster” and stated that it was one of the most original romantic comedies I had ever seen. It was the only film I had seen of Mr. Lanthimos, who at that point, had been making movies since the 1990s. After watching “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” I may never see another of his movies again.

The Lobster’s idiosyncrasies, it’s quirky characters, and its weird dialogue had the appearance of making sense because of the absurd fictional world that they inhabited. Having never seen a Lanthimos film, I suppose I just assumed that when he set stories in the real world, he would not expect to people to speak and act in the same unreal way. My assumption was wrong. “The Killing of Sacred Deer” has no place being set in the real world, but there it is. The unreality of what is happening on the screen and the unbelievable way the characters react to it makes it impossible for the viewer to empathize or care about what is occurring in the story. As a drama, it failed dramatically. As a comedy, the only laughs it garnered were the bad kind.

“The Killing of a Sacred Deer” takes its sweet time in getting to the main conceit of the story. As it meanders, you are left to wonder what might be happening. Several interesting story-lines seem possible, slowly the story is developed and you realize that the story-line that has indeed been chosen is one of the stupider ones. I will now give it away. A surgeon, played by Colin Farrell, once negligently caused the death of a man during a surgery. The son of that man, a shifty and sweaty Barry Keoghan, has put a hex on the surgeon’s family. Actually, to say it is a “hex” is doing more explaining than the movie cares to. What happens is that Colin’s family one-by-one slowly become paralyzed, stop eating, and start bleeding out the eyes. This happens to Colin’s son first before happening to his daughter. We do not know how Barry Keoghan is doing this or whether it a unique hex or has been attempted by anyone before. There is literally no attempt to explain it.

I guess that would not matter so much if other things were not missing. After all, many movies are based on otherwise impossible things happening. But the movie is so deadpan toward the situation, and its characters reactions are so absurdly understated, that it seems the movie is making a point of how pathetic  they are as they are confronted with otherworldly horror. Is the situation being played for laughs? People in the theater were indeed laughing when the story called for the kids crawling along the floor using just their elbows. But did Lanthimos want us to find children crawling on the floor because they can’t use their legs anymore funny? Really?

Characters in movies are fictional, yes I know this. But it also says something about a writer/director who seems to be purposefully positioning his characters in ways where it is impossible to empathize with them. What is left is ultimately is a waste of time. After all, if Lanthimos doesn’t care about whether or not the sacred deer is killed, why should we?

The Beguiled (4/5 Stars)

In the midst of the American Civil War, on an abandoned Southern plantation, there remains a girls school, seemingly marooned from the world. It is headed by Miss Martha (Nicole Kidman) and employs one teacher named Edwina (Kirsten Dunst). She teaches five girls ranging from eight years old to an almost adult named Alicia (Elle Fanning). One day the youngest girl finds an injured Union soldier on the road named Corporal McBurney (Colin Farrell). He is taken into the plantation where the women go about nursing him back to health.

According to the dictionary, to beguile means to “charm or enchant (someone), sometimes in a deceptive way.” The titular “Beguiled” in this movie is perhaps everybody in it. It is a case study in very polite sexual tension. It is not just that Colin Farrell is handsome, and he is, or that the house is full of hospitable southern women who are quite beautiful, and they are, it is that there are several dynamics in between all the characters playing at once. The union soldier is injured so he must rely on the women. But the women are trained by the culture and the time period to acquiesce to the man. But the number of women in the house far outnumber the man. But the women are competing amongst themselves for the man’s attention.

It is a credit to the writing and direction of this movie, that the above does not drown itself in melodrama. Instead through very fine attention to detail and pointed understatement the situation hovers between absurdity and suspense. There is something funny about the women offering the man a home-cooked meal (“would you like some pie, corporal? It’s my special recipe.”) at a dinner they have all dressed too much up at, and also something sinister about it given that any actual sexuality would have drastic consequences. The consequences again are on several levels: The impropriety of such a lady-like institution harboring any such sensual situation, the jealous competition between the ladies themselves, and then there is the war waging outside that technically makes the man and all the women sworn enemies.

The Director is Sofia Coppola, who based her screenplay off a previous movie of the same title. (I bet this remake is much better.) Ms. Coppola perhaps more than anybody in the business is a good argument for nepotism. The thing is that, and if you ever watch interviews with Ms. Coppola perhaps you would agree with me, Ms. Coppola doesn’t really come off, forgive me, as a particularly interesting person. She comes off strikingly competent, yes, but way too literal to be engaging. For those who generally enjoy the insight of a director's interview, Ms. Coppola has a way of making it seem like there is less to the movie than meets the eye. Of course, this shouldn’t be held against her because what counts is the movie and not her personality, and she does make good movies. I simply find it hard to believe that she could have risen through the ranks without her last name because its hard to believe she could ever successfully pitch a movie.

But whatever the reason she gets to make movies, it is a good thing that she does. Most directors aren’t like Sofia Coppola and her movies in turn are not like most. Just as nobody but Coppola would imagine a biopic about Marie Antionette without a beheading, here nobody would have had the follow-through to base a movie for such a sustained period of time on tiny movements, glances, and phrases that may or may not mean what they say they mean. Counter-intuitively, “The Beguiled” may be a movie you should see in a theater because it is small. If you saw it on Netflix, you might miss a good portion of what is happening.

When the movie finally does get dramatic it is very satisfying. The ensemble is perfectly cast. In particular, Nicole Kidman, as the head-mistress, and Elle Fanning, as a really bored girl, do well in their roles. Given the general dearth of good roles for women, I wouldn’t be surprised if this movie got multiple Oscar nominations for acting. And Colin Farrell again made me regret ever thinking he was bad actor. I take it back. I really like that guy.