It’s Like Lion King but with more Pillaging
Introduction
The Northman is a 2022 action revenge movie directed by Robert Eggers, best known for his work on The Lighthouse and is produced by Universal.
Setting and Plot
The Northman is set after the Viking colonisation of Iceland and follows Amleth, a prince forced into exile after his uncle assassinated his father in cold blood. Years have passed since that faithful day, and young Amleth has become a cold-hearted berserker with dreams of retribution being his only comfort.
While plundering a Slavic village with his foster Viking homies, he gets word of the occupation of his uncle’s kingdom, who fled Iceland and now lives in isolation. With our leading character’s desire for vengeance restored, he brands himself as a slave and stowaways onto a ship to get closer to the man who destroyed his life.
While most Hollywood narratives tend to bend over backwards to present their characters as paragons of their kind, the Northman doubles down on humanity’s more visceral and despicable characteristics. Everyone in this film is either a murderer, rapist, or both, with a slavery side gig because why not.
During the first third of the film, The Northman borrows heavily from Hamlet, with several characters taking up similar roles while hitting similar notes. Then the narrative changes its tune to a bloody revenge quest as Amleth surgically dismantles the leftovers of Fjölnir’s kingdom.
This Viking epic does use the fantastical to move its plot along, with Gods and spirits trying to convey their messages to our protagonist. However, the whimsical nature of how these divine messages are being conveyed does make one question whether these premonitions are real, or if everyone is just plain crazy. Also, having the eccentric Willem Defoe as your shaman does not help their validity.
I like to believe that Eggers enjoys playing with his viewers’ expectations, as one of the best duals in the movie comes solely from our lead character’s imagination before a dull and amusing reality kicks in. The bout looks like a boss battle, coming straight out of Dark Souls, where Amleth has to slay this undead lord in order to retrieve this magical sword. It feels so different and creative from the rest of the film that it is worth mentioning. The only other time I saw something similar was with David Lowery’s The Green Knight, another spectacular movie.
Characters and Personalities
Not sure if this was intentional, but Claes Bang’s dark hair made him stand out among the other Scandinavians present. The music halting upon his introduction also adds to Fjölnir’s intimidating and enigmatic nature, which is a compliment when the entire courtroom is full of bloodthirsty killers.
The problem is that his appearance and role in the narrative present him as a rip-off of Scar from Disney’s Lion King, an animated character from another film that also incorporates Hamlet into its plot. The man even lets his kingdom go to ruin, just like the aforementioned character. So the comparison to The Lion King was noticeable with this one, to say the least.
He is not the only one, as Ethan Hawke and Alexander Skarsgård’s characters also bare strong resemblances to personalities from Disney’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
While Hawke’s King Aurvandill’s explanation of their ancestral tree is not quite as impactful as Earl Jone’s Circle of Life, he is still a relatively good character and father but with a tad more pillaging. He may not have been a good person as he was obsessed with glory and honour, but from Amleth’s perspective, he was at least worth avenging.
Speaking about his son and the leading character, Skarsgård’s Amleth is a beast of a man, with a figure so well cut that you could grind cheese off his body. Despite being the protagonist, Amleth’s personality can mostly be summed up as a jacked-up murder hobo who loves showing off his body part collages to incite fear among his foes.
Except for saving his disinterested mother, Queen Gudrún, portrayed by Nicole Kidman, he couldn’t care less about everybody else. He does soften up slightly towards the second half of the film when he develops romantic feelings for Anya Taylor Joy’s Olga, a Slavic mystic.
Touching Kidman’s performance, the lady threw down the gauntlet and delivered one of the best executions to a twist that I have seen in ages. She might even earn an Oscar for that one.
Conclusion
The Northman is an excellent film that manages to capture so much raw emotion during its runtime. Whether you like it depends on your tolerance for violence and these morally complex characters. If you are a fan of revenge plots such as The Count of Monte Cristo or good and gritty historical fiction like Gladiator, then The Northman could possibly be down your alley.
