This week, Robert Eggers evokes Conan the Barbarian and 'Hamlet' in his bloody Viking epic, and Nicolas Cage's four-decade-long career is reflected in a meta-action hall of mirrors.
Got my Northman ticket for Sunday! I would have gone earlier but I have friends in town to entertain. Damn human relationships, delaying my movie going!
The Witch is one of my all time favorites, but The Lighthouse left me entirely cold. (I'm down for Lynchian storytelling, but The Lighthouse was juggling so many different themes that it didn't seem to be about anything at the end of the day. Besides maybe that Dafoe and Pattinson are excellent, which I already knew.)
On the topic of The Witch, I was hoping it would kick off a new Northern gothic genre. Sad that hasn't happened yet. As a New Englander, I think we're ripe for it. The snow! The woods! The underlying sense that if you're not chipping ice off the sidewalk or chopping wood until your hands blister, you're wasting your day in idleness!
Very curious now that you'll make of The Northman in light of your feelings about Eggers' previous work. I think it has a visceral quality that's more in line with The Lighthouse, but it's a cleaner and more purposeful piece of storytelling. Definitely not your cookie-cutter $90 million Hollywood movie, that's for darn tootin'.
It was definitely clearer/more narratively traditional than The Lighthouse. I'm still sorting out my reaction. About half an hour in, I thought of the Mr Show sketch where a woman drunkenly says "Oh you men!" in response to some dumb masculine feuding. I found it really hard to shake that thought through the rest of the movie.
Do we still make movies in 2022 that are this unapologetically/uncritically macho? There were a few nods here and there, but I believe the movie wanted us firmly on Skarsgard's side in a way that felt weird to me. I was really hoping for a massive third act pivot that would make Nicole Kidman the main character- that woman's got a story to tell.
Did you really feel it was uncritically macho? A lot of destruction in this world is caused by masculine feuding. And I think --- and a little light spoiler space for people who haven't seen it --- the fact that our hero's understanding of his journey turns out to be fundamentally wrong makes the film a lot less straightforward than it seems. (Plus you get that incredible scene with Nicole Kidman.) I had a good time with this film, but it's definitely YMMV.
This is really what the film hinges on. What do we think Eggers believes? Who does the film expect us to root for? This felt like a drag movie to me, with everyone in it performing masculinity SO HARD every second. Was that intentional?
SPOILERS ahoy.
Like I said, there were definitely some small nods at a more nuanced view. Kidman's speech. Other hints that Fjolnir is actually a pretty good guy (within the Viking context where everyone's a murderous slaving rapist). I read Skarsgard's choice on the boat as just that- *a choice* that he could have made differently, and it says something about him that he prefers to pretend he's forced into doing things by fate.
But I felt like the movie expected me to see a lot of the climatic actions scenes as AWESOME! rather than "oh you men!". The battle on the lava field is so over-the-top! Two naked greased up men sword fighting with dramatic music and wolf-like grunts. I felt like the movie wanted me to be invested in this fight, instead of seeing it as some futile act of brutality by a guy who can't let go of his past.
It bothered me that the love story with Anya Taylor Joy is so thin and implausible. What are her motivations? Why does she fall in love with this dude who helped murder her entire family and enslave her, and after, what, 3 conversations? It's a bit weird that Kidman gets all the character development and there's none left over for other female characters.
Northman look good, but me especially excited to see Björk return to acting after Lars von Trier basically traumatize her into not wanting to try it again. But much as me hated Dancer In Dark (it just von Trier piling misery on top of misery to point where neither plot nor character actions make any sense), her performance was remarkable, and me disappointed we were robbed of two decades of Björk's acting between then and now.
I saw The Northman a couple nights ago and my reaction was pretty much the same as Scott's. The comparison to Hamlet is a really good one, but it also reminded me of any sort of tragic mythological fable, where a prophecy is given and then you see how it plays out. One of my friends afterwards was complaining about that aspect, how it wasn't surprising how it turned out because it all went according to the prophecy as well as what you the viewer would expect. Which is true, but much like seeing a Shakespeare play, you can enjoy the execution even if you know where it's going. And there were a lot of interesting surprises as it got from here to there.
Another funny thing I noticed is the weird parallels between The Northman and The Green Knight. It must have been unintentional since they were probably in production at the same time, but both of them are filmed in Iceland, feature a mysterious fox that the protagonist has to follow, and both feature psychedelic mushrooms. A friend also noticed that between the fox-chasing and the natural hot spring and the beautiful landscapes, this was almost like a movie version of Ghosts of Tsushima (an excellent video game) but set in Iceland instead of Japan.
It seems like I'm falling in line with the bonus Next Picture Show episode, your written review, and the takes here concerning The Northman. Liked it a lot, even if I was still expecting much more (maybe too much) from a new Eggers film.
Now I want to see "The Northman" sooner rather than later. Thanks!
"seems a couple of rewrites away from the clever meta-comedy it aspires to be"
unsurprising, but disappointing to hear
Got my Northman ticket for Sunday! I would have gone earlier but I have friends in town to entertain. Damn human relationships, delaying my movie going!
The Witch is one of my all time favorites, but The Lighthouse left me entirely cold. (I'm down for Lynchian storytelling, but The Lighthouse was juggling so many different themes that it didn't seem to be about anything at the end of the day. Besides maybe that Dafoe and Pattinson are excellent, which I already knew.)
On the topic of The Witch, I was hoping it would kick off a new Northern gothic genre. Sad that hasn't happened yet. As a New Englander, I think we're ripe for it. The snow! The woods! The underlying sense that if you're not chipping ice off the sidewalk or chopping wood until your hands blister, you're wasting your day in idleness!
Very curious now that you'll make of The Northman in light of your feelings about Eggers' previous work. I think it has a visceral quality that's more in line with The Lighthouse, but it's a cleaner and more purposeful piece of storytelling. Definitely not your cookie-cutter $90 million Hollywood movie, that's for darn tootin'.
It was definitely clearer/more narratively traditional than The Lighthouse. I'm still sorting out my reaction. About half an hour in, I thought of the Mr Show sketch where a woman drunkenly says "Oh you men!" in response to some dumb masculine feuding. I found it really hard to shake that thought through the rest of the movie.
Do we still make movies in 2022 that are this unapologetically/uncritically macho? There were a few nods here and there, but I believe the movie wanted us firmly on Skarsgard's side in a way that felt weird to me. I was really hoping for a massive third act pivot that would make Nicole Kidman the main character- that woman's got a story to tell.
Did you really feel it was uncritically macho? A lot of destruction in this world is caused by masculine feuding. And I think --- and a little light spoiler space for people who haven't seen it --- the fact that our hero's understanding of his journey turns out to be fundamentally wrong makes the film a lot less straightforward than it seems. (Plus you get that incredible scene with Nicole Kidman.) I had a good time with this film, but it's definitely YMMV.
This is really what the film hinges on. What do we think Eggers believes? Who does the film expect us to root for? This felt like a drag movie to me, with everyone in it performing masculinity SO HARD every second. Was that intentional?
SPOILERS ahoy.
Like I said, there were definitely some small nods at a more nuanced view. Kidman's speech. Other hints that Fjolnir is actually a pretty good guy (within the Viking context where everyone's a murderous slaving rapist). I read Skarsgard's choice on the boat as just that- *a choice* that he could have made differently, and it says something about him that he prefers to pretend he's forced into doing things by fate.
But I felt like the movie expected me to see a lot of the climatic actions scenes as AWESOME! rather than "oh you men!". The battle on the lava field is so over-the-top! Two naked greased up men sword fighting with dramatic music and wolf-like grunts. I felt like the movie wanted me to be invested in this fight, instead of seeing it as some futile act of brutality by a guy who can't let go of his past.
It bothered me that the love story with Anya Taylor Joy is so thin and implausible. What are her motivations? Why does she fall in love with this dude who helped murder her entire family and enslave her, and after, what, 3 conversations? It's a bit weird that Kidman gets all the character development and there's none left over for other female characters.
Eggers has specifically referred to Amleth as an antihero, and I honestly can't imagine coming out of that theater thinking otherwise.
Northman look good, but me especially excited to see Björk return to acting after Lars von Trier basically traumatize her into not wanting to try it again. But much as me hated Dancer In Dark (it just von Trier piling misery on top of misery to point where neither plot nor character actions make any sense), her performance was remarkable, and me disappointed we were robbed of two decades of Björk's acting between then and now.
I would temper that excitement just a tad. Not to say she isn’t perfectly cast here. I would just go in expecting less Bjork.
I would see a Michael Bay movie if it had even 30 seconds of Bjork as a Scandinvian witch.
I saw The Northman a couple nights ago and my reaction was pretty much the same as Scott's. The comparison to Hamlet is a really good one, but it also reminded me of any sort of tragic mythological fable, where a prophecy is given and then you see how it plays out. One of my friends afterwards was complaining about that aspect, how it wasn't surprising how it turned out because it all went according to the prophecy as well as what you the viewer would expect. Which is true, but much like seeing a Shakespeare play, you can enjoy the execution even if you know where it's going. And there were a lot of interesting surprises as it got from here to there.
Another funny thing I noticed is the weird parallels between The Northman and The Green Knight. It must have been unintentional since they were probably in production at the same time, but both of them are filmed in Iceland, feature a mysterious fox that the protagonist has to follow, and both feature psychedelic mushrooms. A friend also noticed that between the fox-chasing and the natural hot spring and the beautiful landscapes, this was almost like a movie version of Ghosts of Tsushima (an excellent video game) but set in Iceland instead of Japan.
The scene with the Sword Guardian intensely reminded me of The Green Knight, especially in the end of their fight.
People keep comparing this movie to Hamlet, but Shakespeare's play was an adaptation of the legend of Amleth, which predates The Bard by centuries.
It seems like I'm falling in line with the bonus Next Picture Show episode, your written review, and the takes here concerning The Northman. Liked it a lot, even if I was still expecting much more (maybe too much) from a new Eggers film.