Valhalla Rising Reviews

Before becoming a hot-shot in Hollywood, Nicolas Winding Refn had been active as a movie director already for 15 years and I really wonder how many 'Drive' fans actually have seen his previous movies. Anyway, since I hadn't seen any of his movies, I was really curious to see this flick. Unfortunately, I thought the whole thing was rather disappointing. Indeed, it has been a while since I saw such an event-less feature (the last one was probably 'When a stranger calls' a few months ago). Basically, it started as some kind of weird Viking Fight Club but, then, as soon as the main character escaped, nothing much really happened. The worst was probably the boat trip which lasted maybe 20 minutes but felt more like 3 hours. There were about 120 lines of dialogue and the main character didn't say a word during the whole thing but I was fine with that. I would have even dropped the annoying sidekick kid and made the other characters always misinterpreting his thoughts and actions. Still, I cannot dismiss this movie. Indeed, it was visually impressive with a great mood and some solid directing and even though it was awfully slow, it was still rather spellbinding above all thanks to Mads Mikkelsen who gave here another electrifying performance. Basically, it was an ambitious but flawed project, some people even compared it to Terrence Mallick's work but it never reached this level. I also discovered that Nicolas Winding Refn conceived the film as some sort of acid trip which was not really surprising. What was rather surprising for me to find out was the fact that it is currently Nicolas Winding Refn's favorite of his own films. Anyway, even though it was terribly slow and sometimes boring to death, it remains an interesting flick and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Winding Refn's work.

This film treats its audience intelligently, and starts in medias res--we are shown One-Eye, silent as always, tied around his neck to a post in the middle of a mud pit and forced to fight two Viking-looking warriors. He brutalizes them. Money exchanges hands and One-Eye submissively allows himself to be transported back to his cage. We are left to piece the clues together ourselves, but Refn has a clear theme: obsessions with power. One-Eye is almost superhuman in his fighting abilities but when he is freed he is ineffably calm and collected, and no one dares to question his power--not even the group of Christian warriors that take him along for their journey to the Crusades. Without giving too much away, they never make it to the desert and the story gets more bizarre as the speaking characters lose their grip on their sanity and power. Everyone but One-Eye is lost and he has no answers for the Crusaders, though they see their fates in his eye, and his eye says to them: “You are all going to die.” The movie is an eclectic mix of anime-, western-, samurai-, and epic-styled films, and the mix serves it well. When I show this movie to friends, I don’t expect them to like it, but they’ve all been as mesmerized as I have. Mads Mikkelsen is to thank for this, saying so much without saying anything at all.