The Northman

"I will avenge you, father. I will save you, mother. I will kill you, Fjölnir "

Director Robert Eggers' most ambitious film yet is a brutal Viking revenge saga. 

Amleth (Alexander Skarsgård) is forced to flee when his father (Ethan Hawke), the king, is killed by his uncle Fjölnir (Claes Bang) and his mother (Nicole Kidman) is taken. Amleth becomes a brutal Berserker warrior and when the opportunity comes to travel to Iceland to seek revenge he poses as a slave and is helped by fellow slave Olga (Anya Taylor-Joy). 

As revenge stories go this is an excellent one. Amleth is full of rage because of how he has been wronged and his only mission in life is to get revenge. What's interesting is that the goalposts move with Amleth  not actually knowing the full story of behind Fjölnir's killing of his father. There's also a point where Amleth wonders if he has found an alternative way to find happiness and it's gripping to see whether he can let go of his need for revenge or not. 

This is a remarkably well-made film in every way. It's shot beautifully, really making use of the environments of the North Atlantic and the incredible skies. The cast are fantastic with every single actor doing wonderful things with their roles. It's the best performance of Skarsgård's career though it's Anya Taylor-Joy who is the most stunningly captivating here. 

Eggers films always have an element of mysticism about them and this is no different, though said mysticism is more widely accessible here. Most stories of people set two thousand plus years ago fail to consider just how important their mythology and religious beliefs were to them. Eggers ensures that Norse Mythology is central to the worldview of the characters. I always really liked that though there are all sorts of ceremonies and mystical moments, most, if not all, could easily be explained as something Amleth is imagining, so it's open to interpretation if these parts of the film are 'real' or not. 

This is just a film that gets everything right. It's brutal without being gratuitously so, it manages to include some great female characters in a story that could easily have been overwhelmingly male and it's pretty plausible in terms of history too. It successfully manages to avoid the obvious pitfalls and manages to contain a great story, great characters, great performances and great direction. 

Epic in every sense of the word.