Robert Eggers offers a visual and psychological shock to the spectator with The Northman. The director of The Witch and of The Lighthouse pushes the multisensory experience even further for this fresco full of noise and fury. Alexander Skarsgard embodies a prince drunk on revenge in an intense and magical universe.
“I wanted to show Vikings between legends and historical reality, confides the director to 20 minutes. It also seemed important to me to stand out from the virile and toxic side that often accompanies their romanticized adventures. “Powerful roles played by Anya Taylor-Joy (seen in the series The Ladies Game , The Witch and Last Night in Soho), Nicole Kidman and Björk (who is making a big comeback to the cinema) add to the fascination of the public. With women of this caliber, The Northman is all the more surprising.
History and fights
However, the filmmaker does not spare Dantesque combat scenes by relying on the heroic deeds of Amleth who also inspired William Shakespeare for Hamlet. “Reporting violence, showing it in a spectacular way without glorifying it is the challenge I have set myself”, specifies Robert Eggers. It achieves this result by not sparing the effects showing that the brutality of the clashes causes serious damage.
The filmmaker has also done extensive research on the history of Iceland and the reality of the Viking people. “I am sometimes criticized for living in the past, he insists, but it’s my way of expressing what I feel and talking about the present. These princes who sacrifice their lives and their loved ones for the desire for power end up seeming paltry in their quest but they find an echo in the current period.
The Icelandic Spirit
The director worked meticulously with archaeologists to stick to historical truth in every detail. He also called on Sjon, an Icelandic poet, to give a fantastic, very powerful side to his film. “I couldn’t have achieved such subtlety without an artist like Sjon to help me understand the Icelandic spirit,” he admits.
In this area, the appearances of wizards played by Björk and Willem Dafoe seem particularly apt. This cocktail of the trivial and the fantastic gives a unique tone to The Northman which takes the public to remote times where everything seems to be able to happen to capsize souls and roll heads.