Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America

...and where are YOUR cinematic masterpieces? How many Oscar winning films have you made, Jack? Severed Ways may have sucked, but at least they went out and actually tried to make a movie. I really hate all the would-be "Critics" here who do nothing but complain about how bad every movie is, but yet, haven't made anything worthwhile themselves. Jealousy isn't a very flattering thing, which most "Critics" seem to be.

As far as the soundtrack is concerned, the music(although not really fitting into the movie very well), is at least different than the cookie-cutter music of almost every other "period" piece.

There obviously were some major exploratory discoveries unrecorded in history that no human being alive today knows about. This movie depicts one of them and the subtitle gives it its significance. The two lost Vikings represent two elements that have created the American character, the heathen and the Christian, both so western in character. Here we see the first dude on our soil. We graphically see the most important defecation in the history of North America, the first human waste to touch and fertilize its soil and perhaps ultimately to make it toxic. The defecation becomes a ritual act. If guns, germs and steel conquered the North American wilderness, here we have only steel and no long term conquest; The sound of steel on wood is an underlying rhythm in the film. And it is very prescient that some of the chopping is mindless. The sound of the axes is woven into the incredible sound track. The film is very much about music. It is the exquisite lyrical blending of music and image that make this movie totally mesmerizing. Very little dialogue is needed and very little is supplied. This movie is not for film illiterates who think that the best of the best of the Dogma films is just unsteady camera work. This film will polarize the audience and separate the mindful from the mindless. The mindful being those who will love this genre creating movie.

As a huge fan of viking stories, I watched Severed Ways with hopeful eyes, but it seems that no-one but Hrafn Gunnlaugsson is ever going to get close to capturing anything that is close to what those days might have been like. The basic setup for the story is fine, but the lack of a script becomes a problem right away. Being from Sweden I was very annoyed with the few speaking parts - the director has stolen dialogue/sound from what seems to be an old Bergman film, and put subtitles to it that has nothing to do with what is spoken. That was just weird. I doubt that it is even legal. Chopping down trees right, left and center in the woods seems illegal as well, not to mention the killing of the chicken. This film obviously had no budget, so I doubt that Tony Stone had permits to do that. Burning down a church to the tunes of Burzum was a kick in the nuts to authority as well, as Varg Vikernes is in prison for doing just that. And still I kind of like this film - anybody can go out and capture what they want with a digital video camera, go nuts and produce something that is not that bad. I give kudos for effort - and the poop scene had me gagging for days;)

One guy I know of said it was one of the worst movies he's seen this year. I don't think it is, but it's still bad. Basically, two Vikings find themselves stranded in North America in 1007, there's a lot of beautiful scenery, little dialog, a soundtrack that borders of great (Judas Priest! Brian Eno! Popul Vuh! Queens of the Stone Age! Morbid Angel!) and bad (Prison era Burzum), we see one of the characters defaecate in graphic detail, and we get lot's of silence interrupted by Ambient music, particularly Burzum's "Tomhet" (one of his pre-prison works, so it actually works.)

I can see what the director was aiming for (kind of an "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" for Black Metal fans), but it's just so ponderous, dull and uneventful that it becomes a chore to sit through. There are several themes (particularly Pagan Religion vs. the rise of Christianity) that are touched upon, but left mostly unexplored. Plus, the whole thing lacks confidence-again, you get a feeling of what the director is aiming for, but the whole thing is just so boring.

On the plus side, at least it has a first in cinema: A Viking head banging while the music of Dimmu Borgir serves as a soundtrack. Plus, it's better than "Last Days."

Now with a topic as exciting as the Norse discovery of North America and the intrigue of the fate of two lone Vikings left behind, you'd think this movie would be Awesome. On top of that the rich and amazing literary tradition of the Sagas provide ample material that would translate wonderfully to the screen. Simply filming the Vinland Sagas with Freydis and the feuding would have been a recipe for an incredible cinematic romp.

But two lost Vikings roaming the pre-Columbian expanse of North America - interacting with the tribes, encountering foreign peoples, flora and fauna, astonishing the natives etc - that could also have been an incredible story.

But no. With almost no dialogue and bad synth music, the viewer is subjected to an hour and a half of two guys cutting down trees and shitting in the woods.

This is not a movie that's so bad it's good. It's just bad.