Film Flare's Film Diary 2013/19

Good evening everyone.

 

This week, because of the release of shiny PS3 game The Last of Us and online nerd-a-thon DOTA 2, I have only had time to watch one film this week. Luckily, BBC iPlayer was able to deliver and it was showing a film I had heard much about but never got around to seeing. 

 

Valhalla Rising (2009)

 

Directed by super-hot Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn, this film is a oddly quiet, low key piece of cinema which thrills and frustrates in almost equal measure.

Starring Danish super actor Mads Mikkelsen (Pusher and Pusher 2), this film has almost no dialogue at all but is instead told through visual style and grim faces. It is a potent piece of physical acting to be dangerous and yet to remain as blank and mysterious as he does. His one eye (the character is called One-Eye) gives away very little apart from at key points but it is the movements that give away much of what goes on in his head.

The rest of the actors are a grim looking bunch who propel the story along in six chapters, each in chronological order of a larger plot. The story is oddly small and mythical, a kind of nightmarish fairy tale. It deals with One -Eye escaping from a mountain tribe and meeting some crusaders who them sail off to the holy land, but don't find it. 

The film's real strengths lie in the senses. It is a marvel of the eyes and ears. The shots of the mountains (the whole film was shot in Scotland) are hostile and brutal, giving way to the ethereal unease of the voyage itself. The scenes of the voyage is like imagining a grimmer, more depressing Rime of the Ancient Marine. The film also had very little dialogue or music and instead just has a hypnotic soundtrack of wind and waves that adds very much to the hostile yet dreamlike quality of the film.

In many respects, it shares stylistic similarities to Refn's more recent work, such as Drive. The quiet anti-heroes (in the case of Valhalla Rising, One-Eye is mute) that give very little away with facial expressions but it is through their actions that they 'speak'. The film has much more emphasis on making the natural seem slightly unnatural and it is in this world the larger than life characters seem at home. There is also a strong emphasis on colour and red in particular. This is a difference from Refn's earlier works which were filmed so closely to the characters themselves, the films almost became POV.

 

However, I can see that the film would be almost impossible to enjoy for a great many people. It is not a 'fast' film. The lack of dialogue and soundtrack, in addition to the long, handheld shots of mountains and woods would drive many people to claim the film is pompous and the plot itself, dealing with the topics that it does, could be considered self-important. 

But certainly, when I watched the film, I was arrested by the dreamlike nature of the sounds and sights and this unsettling film carried me along until it was over. I wouldn't say I enjoyed it as I would have enjoyed many films, but I experienced it and am glad I did so.

 

 

 

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