The collective eyes of the cinema-going public may be held aloft (quite rightly) watching Tom Cruise fly jets for real in Top Gun: Maverick but another, more caustic film has made its way onto VOD and physical media way before its time. The Northman, Robert Eggers’ first foray into Hollywood movie making is a brutal tale of revenge that unseams from the nave to the chaps and leaves a bloody trail of viscera in its wake. We might have the need for speed but sometimes we must thirst for the worst.
Alexander Skarsgård is Amleth, a Viking warrior prince cast aside when his father King Aurvandill is fatally ambushed by his bastard brother Fjölnir. Amleth is a seething knot of rage, a physical monster of a man whose skeleton and vital organs could explode from his demi-god body at any moment. The sheer ferocity displayed is overwhelming, the closest comparison would be Sláine the Celtic hero written by the creator of 2000AD, Pat Mills. Sláine channels earth power through a ‘warp spasm’ and transforms into a terrifying being capable of slaying hundreds of warriors. Amleth’s fury seems more horrific for being contained within his extraordinary human frame.
“I Will Avenge You, Father. I Will Save You, Mother. I Will Kill You, Fjölnir”
During his exile, Amleth is raised as a berserker, one of the wolf warriors who wear pelts, howl at the moon, and tear their victims apart with teeth and axe. His mantra pulses through his veins, “I Will Avenge You, Father. I Will Save You, Mother. I Will Kill You, Fjölnir.” His masculinity was forged as a child by his father, “Should I fall by the enemy’s sword, you must avenge me or forever live in shame!”
Eggers’ fashions an epic Norse saga from the original story of Amleth the inspiration for Hamlet, but what happens if a father doesn’t deserve a son’s vengeance? What if our childhood memories are falsehoods perpetuated by barbaric traditions? Are we still bound by our oaths then?
The Northman is a world of frozen depths of despair and depravity, an ice-cold hell awash with blood that sluices through all semblance of order. To be human is to be unbound and open to the elements, to be hung like chattel or burned alive. Eggers shows our ancestors as the worst of humanity, the growing pains of civilisation, the broken limbs on the way to enlightenment, or a chilling reminder that men like Amleth are never too far removed from us, capable of enormous violence and despicable cruelty.
The women in this charnel house are brutalised and hardwired to survive the hideous rituals of men. Whilst kings and princes scamper about on all fours, snarling and growling, barking, and farting, queens and witches raise families and try to protect their children from the heinous glare of patriarchy. But of course, they are not immune but corrupted from within to continue the line of barbarity and humiliation, willing and unwilling participants in the towering evil of men.
And what women they are, Nicola Kidman as Queen Gudrún, Amleth’s mother, electric in her rasping cruelty and her best movie performance in years, Anna Taylor-Joy as Olga, a sorceress and co-conspirator with Amleth and finally Bjork as the Seeress, a divine cameo that only enhances the ethereal nature of Eggers’ supernatural revenge narrative. For all The Northman’s searing violence and Top Gun: Maverick’s hi-tech action are separated by a thousand years, they are still both movies where the main protagonists have serious daddy issues.