Le Guerrier silencieux

"Valhalla Rising" is a strange movie that will split the audience into lovers and haters like you can see in the comments here. To me its these movies that are most interesting. If a movie goer sees a movie like this with breathtakingly beautiful and artistic cinematography on a low budget and still rates it with one or two stars, its either pure ignorance or something was struck that resonated in a negative way.

I already loved the previous movies of director Winding Refn but this one goes into a totally different direction. Its hard to explain the plot because most of it happens in the viewers head. What you see is mostly mythological and religious symbolism all revolving around the main character "One eye". A warrior who fights with a raw power of which we never know its human or not because he is mute and keeps the same empty expression in his face throughout the movie (only in some scenes it seems like hints of a smile shine through).

The movie starts with "One eye" held captive and has to fight battles to the death in which he always prevails. This first part of the movie has some raw violence in it and could be viewed as the "most entertaining" part because after this "Valhalla Rising" turns into a slow moving journey to an unknown place with barely any dialog and a droning ambient soundtrack.

Its hard to say what really happens in the several segments the movie is split into but the religious tone ("Hell", "Sacrifice") already show this is not a movie on a more existential level. And as I am still trying to piece the impressions of "Valhalla Rising" together I find that its a movie that sticks with you long after watching if you let yourself dive into the dense atmosphere. The imagery is stunning throughout, the most simple shots like a close up of knifes being washed in a river look like a beautiful painting and the constant difference between the beauty of the cinematography and the cold colors, raw violence and the dark droning soundtrack are as captivating as Mads MIkkelsen playing the cold expressionless "One Eye" like a force of nature.

I can't put my finger on what sucked me into this movie but "Valhalla Rising" is an experience open minded movie fans should not miss and I am looking forward to future projects from this promising director.

When I heard there was going to be a Viking movie with Mads Mikkelson, and I saw the trailer for it, I was very very intrigued. I am of the opinion that a serious Viking drama has never been done well or respectfully, so I was really hoping that I might get that here.

Unfortunately, the plot of Vallhalla Rising is so shallow and near meaningless that I must admit that I'm still waiting.

That being said, if judged in terms of cinematic and visual experience, it was beautifully shot, and the much vaunted fights scenes (especially the ones in the beginning) were awesome in their brutality. The director sets great scenes in some awesome locations, so your eyes will be in for a treat... but don't expect riveting plot. Rather, think of this as an arts movie with a bit of brutal violence in it.

Hell, I just wished they named the movie better. The fact these characters are Norse is just about irrelevant... they could have plugged a number of different cultures into this story-line, change a few slight details and the difference to the core story would have been negligible. Way to name a movie Valhalla Rising' simply because otherwise the idea that there are Vikings in this movie is not reinforced heavily enough.

So, watch if you want a artsy visual experience... don't sit down with a bunch of friends expecting a action blockbuster. This is not it.

Valhalla Rising came out of nowhere, the trailer looked promising and had a "300" vibe to it. It looked stylized but realistic, brutal and with a respectable story. A plethora of aspects were extremely disappointing. The first few minutes are an outstanding way to start off this film, but the fifty minutes after are extremely boring. I was tempted to leave. While I enjoy a nice story with brutal action, there isn't much of a story here. It's more about the mythology than the story., and you'll hope for something to occur as each pointless minute passes along until the credits start to roll. It is one that is open to interpretation but most people won't bother. It simply doesn't make sense, and it has that "House of 1000 Corpses" random picture factor that gives it an easy way to be called unique. "One Eye" was the only iconic character in this film, the rest have a 21st century feeling in the way they look and dress. The world was often too grim and dark to fully enjoy the scenery. The attention to detail is impressive but felt only known to the writers as Valhalla Rising failed to present what it wanted to towards the audience.

I do applaud the filmmakers for creating a respectable indie film with their limited resources. Its' best features are the voices/sound effects, the vibrant (almost pink) blood in the dark setting and the brutal (but limited) action sequences.

Simply put, I am extremely disappointed. In the end, if you're looking for a brutal film with an epic storyline, you won't find one here. If you want something unique to everything else out there, a film with an underlying deep meaning like no other film out there, you may find Valhalla Rising worth your time. Audiences will be split.

But I'll try, how about horrible or awful or abysmal? No, those are too gentle for what has to be one of most self absorbed, pretentious, and poorly directed films I've ever seen and definitely the absolute worst of the Viking genre.

I stumbled upon this film not knowing what to expect beyond the brief description of the movie in the summary and a few of the rosier reviews would lead one to believe that his is a piece of life changing existentialist art. Those reviews are every bit as vacuous and pretentious as the aimless direction provided by Nicolas Refn. How self involved, how self important, how narcissistic was Refn's directing? We could have spent 90 minutes watching Refn masturbate on film, and in essence that's just what we did.

Let us start with the historical inaccuracies which abound in this "work of art" to such a degree that one must not only suspend disbelief, one must take it out into the woods and leave it for dead. When directing a period film it's not always necessary to get every little detail right, but it would be nice if you could at least get the basics down but even that is beyond Refn. In fact he does manage to achieve the near impossible, getting almost nothing right. The boat, the weapons, the armor, their hygiene, the settlement, their customs...honestly next to "Valhalla Rising" the 1954 classic "Prince Valiant" is practically historical documentary. Well strike one, if we can't have even rudimentary accuracy then at least we'll have an interesting story right? Right? Wrong. What we have instead is a display of Refn's conceit as he presents us with a script that is half art house cinema and half epic drama, and yet it is both uninteresting and banal. About half way through the film it suddenly dawned on me WHY it was so badly written. It is badly written because Refn had no clue how to write either an art film or an epic, so what he did was write to formula what he thought an art film and an epic should have. You can almost hear him checking off the list "...mysterious warrior (check), barbaric Vikings (check), filthy Christian crusaders (check), clash of cultures (check), existential struggle (check), recurring themes (check)..." and the result is a hackneyed script written in a paint by numbers manner that has neither soul nor inspiration. You can tell, too, because as good as the acting is you simply cannot bring yourself to care about anyone in the film. The pacing is atrocious, the dialog bounces between being merely bad to painfully over wrought, and much of the acting is tired and uninspiring. The saving grace of the film is the wonderful cinematography, oh, and the scenery is nice, except when the actors are chewing it of course.

All in all this was an immense waste of time and I'd not even have bothered to review it except the people who keep writing these glowing "oh it's a life altering masterpiece" need to be balanced out with a healthy dose of reality.

"I am going to show them that a man of God has arrived."

My fourth Nicolas Winding Refn film, Valhalla Rising, was as demanding as Only God Forgives in the sense that it has very little dialogue, but I enjoyed it much more. It has a very similar structure with extremely violent scenes and a lead character who doesn't utter one single word. The more films of Refn that I watch, the more convinced I am that he has a special fascination with violence. The way he exteriorizes it in his films is very different from most other directors. For example, Quentin Tarantino, another director who likes to depict violence in his films, has a completely different style where the characters are more carefully developed and always have a lot to say. Refn on the other hand doesn't care too much about developing his characters and we don't get much background about them, all we know is that they act on violent impulses. Refn always makes heavily stylized films that look gorgeous, and the Scottish mountain landscape is no exception here. The cinematography is truly breathtaking and there is something magnetic about Mads Mikkelsen's performance. The film begins with a lot of promise, although the pacing really slows down once the vikings show up. Still I was drawn to this character more than I was with Gosling in Only God Forgives. My first Refn film was Drive, which is more mainstream than the rest of his film, and I think having followed it up with Only God Forgives affected my appreciation of that film. Now that I am more familiar with his work I might be able to enjoy it more, but I can't pull myself together for a re-watch. I was convinced his films were more about style over substance, but now I'm beginning to appreciate what he does more and if you pay close attention you can come out of these films with some substance. He lets his audience interpret his work.

The film takes place somewhere around 1000 AD and we are quickly introduced to this mute warrior who they call One Eye (Mads Mikkelsen). He is a prisoner of a Chieftain (Alexander Morton) in the highlands where he is forced to fight to the death against other men. One Eye seems to have some sort of supernatural strength and also has visions of the future. A young boy (Maarten Stevenson) attends him bringing him food and water. One of the visions One Eye has allows him to find an arrowhead under the water which he eventually uses to escape. The young boy follows him and together they run into a group of Christian Vikings, who are on their way to Jerusalem. The leader of the group (Ewan Stewart) asks him to join them and convinces him that if he does he will be able to cleanse his soul and find peace. He agrees and together with the boy they embark on a vessel, but along the way they encounter an endless mist that doesn't allow them to know which direction they are headed. When the mist clears, they find themselves in a strange land with little possibilities of survival.

The film is divided in six chapters and each one is gorgeously shot. Refn always makes stylized films that are beautiful to look at, but when the violent scenes come you want to look away. The narrative isn't always easy to follow either considering there isn't much dialogue, but a lot is open to interpretation. There are also dream sequences that Refn paints in a deep colored red. It's deep and philosophical at times, so if you are expecting a heavy action film you will be disappointed because Refn takes his time to pace this movie and doesn't always explain what he's going for. The score in Valhalla Rising is a little more subtle than in his other films where a lot of electronic music is used. It's a difficult watch, but the images will stick with you.