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!
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!
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.