Watched: Valhalla Rising

Semi-shameful confession/revelation: I really like movies about the Middle Ages. I realized this when I realized that somehow I have managed to watch multiple movies about the Rome's lost Ninth Legion, supposedly massacred in North England. Hollywood clearly shares my weird love for this niche: Robin Hood, Centurion, Braveheart, Kingdom of Heaven, A Knight's Tale, King Arthur, The Lion in the Winter, Monty Python and the Holy Grail (snerk). I'm playing a little fast and loose with dates here, but let's say that I'm counting basically anything from Rome's attempted conquer of Britain to the Renaissance as generally Medieval.

I don't know why I nerd out over this genre (beside the fact that Hollywood provides plenty of fodder for nerding), but I suspect it is for same reason I'm fascinated by Westerns: there is a code of honor, and though the good man may not be all good, they are bound by it. The bad men are not. Knights and Cowboys are really only different by a few centuries and a couple thousand miles. There is a LOT of cheesy, Hollywood version of Medieval Europe to be found (just as many as there are cheesy Westerns, probably). Valhalla Rising is not one of them.

Never was Hobbes' description of the life of man as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short" better exemplified. I really liked Nicholas Winding Refn's Bronson, which shares this film's brutality. I suspect his Pusher trilogy is similarly violence-happy; it seems to be his calling card. But like Bronson, this film is also extremely meditative. There are long stretches of silence. The men are constantly grappling with how much life essentially sucks. Like, seriously, just totally sucks. The plot seems almost inconsequential (Mads Mikkelsen is some kind of indentured fighter for a Norse chieftain, he escapes and kills everyone except a little boy. They then join up with a bunch of Christians trying to get to the holy land; a fog sets in while they are at sea and they end up in North America. Then shit gets weird.). The film is much more focused on displaying the enormity of nature, still untamed, against these men. The cinematography is beautiful, displaying equally the windy hills of Europe and the unforgiving endlessness of wild Northeastern forests (despite the whole thing being filmed in Scotland. Well done there, Refn). The North American sections of the film actually reminded me a lot of Terrence Malick's The New World. Partly because of their score-less contemplation of nature (a common theme in Malick's stuff) and partly because of the sense of unseen but ominpresent malice.

So look: this film is not for everyone. There's a lot of long pans, stationary panoramas, and most of the plot is unspoken. The main character is a fucking mute. And while the acting is generally good the focus is never entirely on just the characters. My personal interpretation of the film is that Refn was trying to explore what a base, cruel world must have existed during the Middle Ages. That, and how utterly unstable the idea of religion or sanctity of life or even the sense of self must have been. Like I said, I'm a sucker for that stuff. So while I really like this (and really liked The New World, for that matter, and generally most films about man grappling with nature or trying to eke out some code of honor) I can understand why others wouldn't.