Movie Review: Valhalla Rising

Brief synopsis…
Valhalla Rising is the story of a mute Norse warrior, enslaved by the clans of the Highlands*, he then finds his freedom and begins an odyssey of epic proportion, in the end, finding some light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.

Perhaps I was under the wrong impression when I assumed this movie would be about Vikings while depicting large format battle scenes, I think I blame the printed materials I first came across: Well, I hope you can see why originally I thought there may be large battles after seeing the hordes of warriors on the original cover.

But, somewhere they made a change, likely it was done before hitting theaters in the USA:

The latter is closer to the movies feel; bleak, dark, almost empty. But allow me to elaborate, this film is in no way “empty” in a negative tense, but rather just full enough – in fact, it nearly over flows with visual beauty, and intense music (NOTE: I do not intend to refer to brutal fight scenes as visual beauty, rather the backdrops. It does pose quite a visual dilemma when faced with the brutality of certain scenes while being set to some of the most amazing landscapes on Earth).

In one scene a young boy, Are, fills us in on the origin of our hero …
“What’s your name” (speaking to One Eye)
“His name is One Eye”
“Where’s he from”
“He’s from Hell”
“Where’s Hell?”
“Across the sea…”

While the young boy appears to be of Viking decent, you never really are told, and while they appear to be surrounded by Scottish clans, you can only truly assume so much; which is something that I loved about this movie – you are told nothing, and left to analyze and conclude most everything on your own. I know that there are some of you that this concept will absolutely freak out, but, you are also more likely to dislike “artsy” type films. (Another strange dilemma; an artsy Scottish-Viking film?)

Via Wikipedia’s description of the movie, “… takes place in 1000 AD and follows a Norse warrior named One-Eye and a boy named Are as they travel with a band of Christian Vikings in pursuit of a Crusade. Instead they voyage west to North America.”

Important side note: don’t be fooled, this is indeed an “ART FILM”- the action is just enough to keep you frothing, but you aren’t going to see mega-battles created in CGI here. The films special effects really take place in the format of makeup and after effects (in terms of hue/color balancing- all done to the point of brilliance mind you).

In the end, this movie is one wild ride, after which I was consumed by it’s acts, meanings, music, backdrop, and history. While engaged in the act of watching it, I found myself moving closer to the television, as if that could somehow help me interpret my surroundings better; while the intensity of some scenes making it hard for me to sit still at times, had me moving all over the couch, or even standing up at one point and talking to myself.

I would close by saying that this type of movie only comes along once in a long while. Rarely are Art, Film, Music, and Awesome built so seamlessly into one flowing body of work; and this body of work is Valhalla Rising.

RANDOM NOTES:
The film starts off with some brutal violence, but the hardest to stomach is in the first scene – entitled “Wrath“, after which, it tones down quite a bit.

Scene V: HELL – a borderline schizophrenic experience; the music really carries this pace as you begin to realize where the travelers are …

PLOT
“A mysterious mute Norse warrior named One-Eye is held captive up above in misty highlands. He is forced as a prisoner to be pitted against other criminals and mercilessly fight to the death. One-Eye continues to survive each fight, ruthlessly slaughtering his enemies by the numbers. While imprisoned, a young boy named Are tends to him regularly, bringing him food and water.

One-Eye is shown to have the ability to foresee events in his dreams.”

OFFICIAL SITE
http://www.valhallarising.dk/